Related papers: Processes in current sheets responsible for fast e…
The debate surrounding fast magnetic energy dissipation by magnetic reconnection has remained a fundamental topic in the plasma universe, not only in the Earth's magnetosphere but in astrophysical objects such as pulsar magnetospheres and…
Magnetic reconnection can explosively release magnetic energy when opposing magnetic fields merge and annihilate through a current sheet, driving plasma jets and accelerating non-thermal particle populations to high energy, in plasmas…
Plasma in the terrestrial magnetosheath is characterised by very weak particle-particle collisions, so kinetic microinstabilities are thought to be responsible for regulating the thermodynamics of the plasma. By exciting electromagnetic…
Magnetic reconnection, a plasma process converting magnetic energy to particle kinetic energy, is often invoked to explain magnetic energy releases powering high-energy flares in astrophysical sources including pulsar wind nebulae and black…
Magnetic reconnection requires the violation of the frozen-in condition which ties gyrating charged particles to the magnetic field inhibiting diffusion. Ongoing reconnection has been identified in near-Earth space as being responsible for…
We analyze the evolution of current driven kink instabilities of a highly magnetized relativistic plasma column, focusing in particular on its dissipation properties. The instability evolution leads to the formation of thin current sheets…
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…
Energy dissipation in collisionless plasmas is one of the most outstanding open questions in plasma physics. Magnetic reconnection and turbulence are two phenomena that can produce the conditions for energy dissipation. These two phenomena…
Partially-ionized plasmas consist of charged and neutral particles whose mutual collisions modify magnetic reconnection compared with the fully-ionized case. The collisions alter the rate and locations of the magnetic dissipation heating…
Magnetic neutral points, where the magnitude of the magnetic field vanishes locally, are potential locations for energy conversion in the solar corona. The fact that the magnetic field is identically zero at these points suggests that for…
Magnetic reconnection is a fundamental plasma process that converts magnetic energy into bulk flow energy, thermal energy, and nonthermal particle acceleration. Despite its importance, the statistical properties of the turbulent…
Non-collisional current sheets that form during the nonlinear development of magnetic reconnection are characterized by a small thickness, of the order of the electron skin depth. They can become unstable to the formation of plasmoids,…
Magnetic reconnection is a fundamental physical process converting magnetic energy into not only plasma energy but also particle energy in various astrophysical phenomena. In this letter, we show a unique dataset of a solar flare where…
The sudden reconnection of a non-force free 2D current layer, embedded in a low-beta plasma, triggered by the onset of an anomalous resistivity, is studied in detail. The resulting behaviour consists of two main phases. Firstly, a transient…
We show how the conversion of magnetic field energy via magnetic reconnection can progress in a fully three-dimensional, fast, volume-filling regime. An initial configuration representative of many laboratory, space and astrophysical…
Magnetic reconnection, breaking and reorganization of magnetic field topology, is a fundamental process for rapid release of magnetic energy into plasma particles that occurs pervasively throughout the universe. In most natural…
In space and astrophysical plasmas, turbulence is responsible for transferring energy from large scales driven by violent events or instabilities, to smaller scales where turbulent energy is ultimately converted into plasma heat by…
Collisionless shock waves are one of the main forms of energy conversion in space plasmas. They can directly or indirectly drive other universal plasma processes such as magnetic reconnection, turbulence, particle acceleration and wave…
The spontaneous evolution of magnetic reconnection in generalized situations (with thermodynamic asymmetry regarding the current sheet and magnetic shear) is investigated using two-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic simulation. We focus on the…
This review discusses the physics of magnetic reconnection, a process in which the magnetic field topology changes and magnetic energy is converted to kinetic energy, in pair plasmas in the relativistic regime. We focus on recent progress…