Small scale plasmoids in the post-plasmoid plasma sheet: Origin of MHD turbulence? Original Research Article

A variety of MHD turbulence can be observed in the Earthʹs magnetotail, but the origin of the turbulence is still a long-standing problem. We study the small-scale fluctuations excited in collsionless magnetic reconnection by using a two-dimensional, particle-in-cell numerical simulation, and propose that the magnetic diffusion region of reconnection may be one of the possible regions to excite a strong MHD turbulence. The magnetic field turbulence observed in the post-plasmoid plasma sheet is compared with the fluctuations obtained in the computer simulation.