On the causes of plasmoid acceleration and changes in magnetic flux in a resistive magnetohydrodynamic plasma

Observationally, the change of acceleration of coronal mass ejections is commonly attributed to the change of the reconnection rate. In this study, we use a two-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic simulation with finite resistivity to study: (1) the forces that lead to the acceleration of the plasma and plasmoid and (2) the time evolution of the topological change of the magnetic flux across the current sheet. Our results show that the fast flows are not limited to the direction perpendicular to the local magnetic field. The fast parallel flows are accelerated by the parallel component of the pressure gradient force. The net force perpendicular to the magnetic field can accelerate the plasma and the plasmoid along the current sheet. The acceleration of the plasmoid is also controlled by the mass contained in the plasmoid. We find that the fast ejection of the plasmoid can stretch the current sheet and consequently reduce the magnetic reconnection/reconfiguration rate temporally before a new plasmoid is formed. We show that the topological change of the magnetic flux is due to the non-uniform magnetic annihilation rate along the current sheet. Therefore, the reconnection/reconfiguration site does not necessarily stay at the neutral point. It can move with the Y-line next to the bifurcated current sheets.