Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T10:35:49.807Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Study of magnetic reconnection in collisional and collionless plasmas in Magnetic Reconnection Experiment (MRX)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 June 2011

Masaaki Yamada  and
Hantao Ji
Masaaki Yamada
Affiliation:
Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, U.S.A. email: [email protected]
Hantao Ji
Affiliation:
Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, U.S.A. email: [email protected]
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Magnetic reconnection (Parker, 1957; Sweet, 1958; Petschek, 1964; Yamada et al., 2010; Biskamp, 2000; Tsuneta, 1996; Kivelson and Russell, 1995; Yamada, 2007; Birn et al., 2001; Drake et al., 2003) is considered important to many astrophysical phenomena including stellar flares, magnetospheric disruptions of magnetars, and dynamics of galactic lobes. Research on magnetic reconnection started with observations in solar coronae and in the Earths magnetosphere, and a classical theory was developed based on MHD. Recent progress has been made by understanding the two-fluid physics of reconnection, through space and astrophysical observations (Tsuneta, 1996; Kivelson and Russell, 1995), laboratory experiments (Yamada, 2007), and theory and numerical simulations (Birn et al., 2001; Daughton et al., 2006; Uzdensky and Kulsrud, 2006). Laboratory experiments dedicated to the study of the fundamental reconnection physics have tested the physics mechanisms and their required conditions, and have provided a much needed bridge between observations and theory. For example, the Magnetic Reconnection Experiment (MRX) experiment (http://mrx.pppl.gov) has rigorously cross-checked the leading theories though quantitative comparisons of the numerical simulations and space astrophysical observations (Mozer et al., 2002). Extensive data have been accumulated in a wide plasma parameter regime with Lundquist numbers of S = 100 − 3000, where S is a ratio of the magnetic diffusion time to the Alfven transit time.

Type
Contributed Papers
Information
Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union , Volume 6 , Symposium S274: Advances in Plasma Astrophysics , September 2010 , pp. 10 - 17
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2011

References

Birn, J., Drake, J. F., Shay, M. A., Rogers, B. N., Denton, R. E., Hesse, M., Kuznetsova, M., Ma, Z. W., Bhattachargee, A., Otto, A., & Pritchett, P. L., J. Geophys. Res., 106 (A3):3715, 2001.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Biskamp, D., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000.Google Scholar
Brown, M. R., Cothran, C. D., & Fung, J., Phys. Plasmas, 13 (5):056503, 2006.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Daughton, W. & Roytershteyn, V., 2010, submitted to Proceedings of ISSI meeting (2010).Google Scholar
Daughton, W., Scudder, J., & Karimabadi, H., Phys. Plasmas, 13:072101, 2006.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Drake, J. F., Swisdak, M., Cattell, C., Shay, M. A., Rogers, B. N., & Zeiler, A., Science, 299:873, 2003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ji, H. & Daughton, W., 2011, to be submitted to Phys. Plasmas.Google Scholar
Ji, H., Yamada, M., Hsu, S., & Kulsrud, R., Phys. Rev. Lett., 80:3256, 1998.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ji, H., Terry, S., Yamada, M., Kulsrud, R., Kuritsyn, A., & Ren, Y., Phys. Rev. Lett., 92:115001, 2004.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ji, H., Ren, Y., Yamada, M., Dorfman, S., Daughton, W., & Gerhardt, S. P., Geophys. Res. Lett., 35:L13106, 2008.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kivelson, M. & Russell, C. T., Cambridge University Press, London, UK, 1995.Google Scholar
Mozer, F. S., Bale, S. D., & Phan, T. D., Phys. Rev. Lett., 89:015002, 2002.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parker, E. N., J. Geophys. Res., 62:509, 1957.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Petschek, H. E., NASA Spec. Pub., 50:425, 1964.Google Scholar
Ren, Y., Yamada, M., Gerhardt, S., Ji, H., Kulsrud, R., & Kuritsyn, A., Phys. Rev. Lett., 95 (5):055003, 2005.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ren, Y., Yamada, M., Ji, H., Gerhardt, S., & Kulsrud, R., Phys. Rev. Lett., 101:085003, 2008.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roytershteyn, V., Daughton, W., Dorfman, S., Ren, Y., Ji, H., Yamada, M., Karimabadi, H., Yin, L., Albright, B. J., & Bowers, K. J., Phys. Plasmas, 17:055706, 2010.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shay, M. A., Drake, J. F., & Swisdak, M., Phys. Rev. Lett., 99 (15):155002, 2007.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sweet, P. A., In, B. Lehnert, editor, Electromagnetic Phenomena in Cosmical Physics, page 123. Cambridge Univ. Press, New York, 1958.Google Scholar
Tsuneta, S., Astrophys. J., 456:840, 1996.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Uzdensky, D. & Kulsrud, R., Phys. Plasmas, 13:062305, 2006.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yamada, M., Phys. Plasmas, 14:058102, 2007.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yamada, M., Ji, H., Hsu, S., Carter, T., Kulsrud, R., Bretz, N., Jobes, F., Ono, Y., & Perkins, F., Phys. Plasmas, 4:1936, 1997.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yamada, M., Ren, Y., Ji, H., Breslau, J., Gerhardt, S., Kulsrud, R., & Kuritsyn, A., Phys. Plasmas, 13:052119, 2006.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yamada, M., Kulsrud, R., & Ji, H., Rev. Mod. Phys., 82:603, 2010.CrossRefGoogle Scholar