Reconnection in turbulent astrophysical fluids

Abstract: Magnetic reconnection is a fundamental process of magnetic field topology change. We analyze the connection of this process with turbulence which is ubiquitous in astrophysical environments. We show how Lazarian & Vishniac (1999) model of turbulent reconnection is connected to the experimentally proven concept of Richardson diffusion and discuss how turbulence violates the generally accepted notion of magnetic flux freezing. We note that in environments that are laminar initially turbulence can develop as a result of magnetic reconnection and this can result in flares of magnetic reconnection in magnetically dominated media. In particular, magnetic reconnection can initially develop through tearing, but the transition to the turbulent state is expected for astrophysical systems. We show that turbulent reconnection predictions corresponds to the Solar and solar wind data.