[CraigS]

Just noticed this article … (about recent results of modelling in turbulent flows) ...

Eyink's study also revealed that the magnetic lines of force that are carried along in a moving magnetized fluid (like a stream of molten metal) move in a completely random way when the fluid flow is turbulent. This contradicts the fundamental principle of "magnetic flux-freezing" formulated by Nobel Prize-winning astrophysicist Hannes Alfvéen in 1942, which states that magnetic lines of force are carried along in a moving fluid like strands of thread cast into a flow.

.. which led me to this paper …
"The Breakdown of Alfven’s Theorem in Ideal Plasma Flows"

To cut a long story short, Alfven’s Theory prohibits magnetic reconnection.

Explaining 'fast magnetic reconnection' is a well-known problem of plasma physics, even though it is used to explain many phenomena in astrophysics. If it can be explained, lots will be accounted for in phenomena like dynamo action, solar flares and coronal mass ejections.

Despite the fact that near-ideal conditions hold in a wide variety of astrophysical situations (interstellar space, the solar corona, etc.), the behavior of these plasmas is not at all “rubber-like”, but instead essentially fluid-dynamical.

As I understand it, since Alven’s Theory prohibits reconnection, any fundamental theory proposing fast reconnection, must also explain why the plasmas stop behaving like fluids, and revert back to the 'rubber-like' behaviours predicted by Alven.

The results presented in this paper support theories of fast turbulent reconnection, in a general way, but also place rigorous constraints upon them.
A basic assumption of those theories is that Alfven’s Theorem may be violated in the limit of vanishing resistivity. We have shown that this is possible by an analysis of the MHD equations for an ideal plasma.

However, ….. Alfen’s theorem on magnetic-flux conservation is much more robust. We have proved that violations of it are only possible, essentially, if singular vortex sheets and current sheets have intersections with high enough dimension and persist long enough in time.

These conditions may be sufficient however, to demonstrate that Alven's Theory prohibiting reconnection, has been all but disproven.

Our EU friends will not like this one, and will probably dance around a lot …. (again).

Cheers