2015ApJ...815...16T

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.