Turbulent Reconnection in Relativistic Plasmas and Effects of Compressibility

We report on the turbulence effects on magnetic reconnection in relativistic plasmas using three-dimensional relativistic resistive magnetohydrodynamics simulations. We found that the reconnection rate became independent of the plasma resistivity due to turbulence effects similarly to non-relativistic cases. We also found that compressible turbulence effects modified the turbulent reconnection rate predicted in non-relativistic incompressible plasmas; the reconnection rate saturates, and even decays, as the injected velocity approaches to the Alfvén velocity. Our results indicate that compressibility cannot be neglected when a compressible component becomes about half of the incompressible mode, occurring when the Alfvén Mach number reaches about 0.3. The obtained maximum reconnection rate is around 0.05–0.1, which will be able to reach around 0.1–0.2 if injection scales are comparable to the sheet length.