Reconnection involving magnetic separators is known to lead to the spontaneous generation of new separator pairs. In this work, we explore the bifurcation process for a system composed of a pair of null points with a joining separator. We begin with a simplified analytical model to derive the basic principles of bifurcation in this system and then consider models with more general separator curve geometry and generic localised null structure. We demonstrate that the maximum pairwise linking (net-winding) of the separator and the local fan plane always approaches a multiple of 0.25 just before bifurcation. Additionally, we show the integrated twisting along the separator (the field strength normalised parallel current) can be used to determine when this limit will definitely lead to bifurcation. We present step-by-step algorithms to assess how close such systems are to bifurcation.

已知涉及磁分离器的重新连接会导致新分离器对的自发产生。在这项工作中，我们探索了由一对带有连接分隔符的零点组成的系统的分岔过程。我们从一个简化的分析模型开始，以推导该系统中分叉的基本原理，然后考虑具有更一般的分隔曲线几​​何形状和一般局部零结构的模型。我们证明了分离器和局部风扇平面的最大成对连接（网络绕组）在分叉之前总是接近 0.25 的倍数。此外，我们展示了沿隔板的集成扭曲（场强归一化并联电流）可用于确定此限制何时肯定会导致分叉。