THE TEARING MODE INSTABILITY OF THIN CURRENT SHEETS: THE TRANSITION TO FAST RECONNECTION IN THE PRESENCE OF VISCOSITY

This paper studies the growth rate of reconnection instabilities in thin current sheets in the presence of both resistivity and viscosity. In a previous paper, Pucci & Velli, it was argued that at sufficiently high Lundquist number S it is impossible to form current sheets with aspect ratios L/a that scale as L/a similar to S-alpha with alpha > 1/3 because the growth rate of the tearing mode would then diverge in the ideal limit S --> infinity. Here we extend their analysis to include the effects of viscosity, always present in numerical simulations along with resistivity, and which may play a role in the solar corona and other astrophysical environments. A finite Prandtl number allows current sheets to reach larger aspect ratios before becoming rapidly unstable in pileup-type regimes. Scalings with Lundquist and Prandtl numbers are discussed, as well as the transition to kinetic reconnection.