Description
Solar flares are explosive events in which magnetic reconnection rapidly converts stored magnetic energy into bulk motion, plasma heating, and particle acceleration. Observations of solar flare ribbons reveal various fine structures, including wave-like perturbations and spirals, which theory suggests are linked to plasmoids formed via tearing-mode instabilities in the flare current sheet. Because these substructures capture key information about turbulent magnetic reconnection, studying them closely can yield vital insights into how the flare current sheet fragments.
In this work, we leverage the self-similar nature of these fine structures to develop an automatic detection method for identifying them in our high-resolution 3D MHD simulations. This method assists us in tracing the plasmoids throughout the flare event, offering a more detailed picture of the underlying reconnection dynamics. Inferring the dynamics of the flare magnetic reconnection is an important step toward advancing our understanding of space weather.
