Related papers: Reconnection in Marginally Collisionless Accretion…
In a magnetized, collisionless plasma, the magnetic moment of the constituent particles is an adiabatic invariant. An increase in the magnetic-field strength in such a plasma thus leads to an increase in the thermal pressure perpendicular…
Magnetic reconnection is a fundamental plasma process involving an exchange of magnetic energy to plasma kinetic energy through changes in the magnetic field topology. In many astrophysical plasmas magnetic reconnection plays a key role in…
Non-thermal X-ray emission in compact accretion engines can be interpreted to result from magnetic dissipation in an optically thin magnetized corona above an optically thick accretion disk. If coronal magnetic field originates in the disk…
The quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) in black hole (BH) systems of different scales are interpreted based on the magnetic reconnection of the large-scale magnetic fields generated by the toroidal electric currents flowing in the inner…
This work presents a 2.5-dimensional simulation study of the instability of current-sheets located in a medium with a strong density variation along the current layer. The initial force-free configuration is observed to undergo a two-stage…
We conduct a multiparametric study of driven magnetic reconnection relevant to recent experiments on colliding magnetized laser produced plasmas using particle-in-cell simulations. Varying the background plasma density, plasma resistivity,…
We simulate magnetic reconnection in electron-positron (pair) plasma using a collisionless two-fluid model with isotropic pressure. In this model the resistive, Hall, and electrokinetic pressure terms are absent from the curl of Ohm's law,…
Black hole (BH) accretion disks are often coupled to ultramagnetized and tenuous plasma coronae close to their central BHs. The coronal magnetic field can exchange energy between the disk and the BH, power X-ray emission, and lead to jetted…
We develop a relativistic scenario of fast magnetic reconnection process, for general magnetohydrodynamical plasmas around Kerr black holes. Generalizing the Petschek model, we study various properties of the reconnection layer in distinct…
Magnetic reconnection is one of the fundamental dynamical processes in the solar corona. The method of studying reconnection in active region-scale magnetic fields generally depends on non-local methods (i.e. requiring information across…
A mechanism for explosive magnetic reconnection is investigated by analyzing the nonlinear evolution of a collisionless tearing mode in a two-fluid model that includes the effects of electron inertia and temperature. These effects…
Magnetic reconnection is believed to be the primary mechanism by which non-potential energy stored in coronal magnetic fields is rapidly released during solar eruptive events. Unfortunately, owing to the small spatial scales on which…
Magnetic reconnection plays a crucial role in large dissipative events in space plasmas, such as solar flares and geomagnetic substorms, but there has been much confusion regarding reconnection onset responsible for the explosive events.…
It is widely accepted that X-ray emission in luminous active galactic nuclei (AGNs) originates from hot corona. To prevent the corona from over-cooling by strong X-ray emission, steady heating to the corona is essential, for which the most…
Context. Many low-redshift active galactic nuclei harbor a supermassive black hole accreting matter at low or medium rates. At such rates, the accretion flow usually consists of a cold optically thick disk, plus a hot, low density,…
Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) erupt and expand in a magnetically structured solar corona. Various indirect observational pieces of evidence have shown that the magnetic field of CMEs reconnects with surrounding magnetic fields, forming,…
Relativistic collisionless shocks are associated with efficient particle acceleration when propagating into weakly magnetized homogeneous media; as the magnetization increases, particle acceleration becomes suppressed. We demonstrate that…
Plasmoid instability is usually accounted for the onset of fast reconnection events observed in astrophysical plasmas. However, the measured reconnection rate from observations can be one order of magnitude higher than that derived from MHD…
Black hole and neutron star environments often comprise collisionless plasmas immersed in strong magnetic fields and intense baths of low-frequency radiation. In such conditions, relativistic magnetic reconnection can tap the magnetic field…
Microflares, one of small-scale solar activities, are believed to be caused by magnetic reconnection. Nevertheless, their three-dimensional (3D) magnetic structures, thermodynamic structures, and physical links to the reconnection have been…