Related papers: Magnetic Reconnection in a Weakly Ionized Plasma
Relativistic magnetic reconnection studies have focused on symmetric configurations so far, where the upstream plasma has identical properties on each side of the layer. The boundary layer between a relativistic jet and an accretion flow…
Motivated by recent observations of "electron-only" magnetic reconnection, without an ion-scale sheet or ion outflows, in both the Earth's magnetosheath and in numerical simulations, we study the formation and reconnection of electron-scale…
A new path for the generation of a sub-ion scale cascade in collisionless plasma turbulence, triggered by magnetic reconnection, is uncovered by means of high-resolution two-dimensional hybrid-kinetic simulations employing two complementary…
Magnetic reconnection -- a fundamental plasma physics process, where magnetic field lines of opposite polarity annihilate -- is invoked in astrophysical plasmas as a powerful mechanism of nonthermal particle acceleration, able to explain…
Magnetic reconnection is believed to be the driver of many explosive phenomena in Astrophysics, from solar to gamma-ray flares in magnetars and in the Crab nebula. However, reconnection rates from classic MHD models are far too slow to…
How energy is converted into thermal energy in weakly collisional and collisionless plasma processes such as magnetic reconnection and plasma turbulence has recently been the subject of intense scrutiny. The pressure-strain interaction has…
We numerically studied magnetic reconnection in a high $\beta$ hydrogen-helium plasma at different altitudes from the photosphere to the upper chromosphere. The time dependent ionization degrees were included to get more realistic…
Magnetic reconnection is a ubiquitous phenomenon in turbulent plasmas. It is an important part of the turbulent dynamics and heating of space and astrophysical plasmas. We examine the statistics of magnetic reconnection using a quantitative…
Our understanding of magnetic reconnection in resistive magnetohydrodynamics has gone through a fundamental change in recent years. The conventional wisdom is that magnetic reconnection mediated by resistivity is slow in laminar high…
In magnetized astrophysical outflows, the dissipation of field energy into particle energy via magnetic reconnection is often invoked to explain the observed non-thermal signatures. By means of two- and three-dimensional particle-in-cell…
Recently, magnetic reconnection, where a relativistically hot plasma is confined by a strong magnetic field, has received great attention in relation to astrophysical objects (e.g., pulsar magnetosphere and magnetar). However, reconnection…
The meeting of astrophysical plasmas and their magnetic fields creates many reconnection sites. We experimentally compare the reconnection rate of laser-driven magnetic reconnection when it takes place at a single site and multiple sites.…
We derive, and validate numerically, an analytical model for electron-only magnetic reconnection applicable to strongly magnetized plasmas. Our model predicts sub-ion-scale reconnection rates significantly higher than those pertaining to…
Hybrid-Vlasov-Maxwell simulations of magnetized plasma turbulence including non-linear electron-inertia effects in a generalized Ohm's law are presented. When fluctuation energy is injected on scales sufficiently close to ion-kinetic…
It is commonly believed that blazar jets are relativistic magnetized plasma outflows from supermassive black holes. One key question is how the jets dissipate magnetic energy to accelerate particles and drive powerful multi-wavelength…
Reconnection and turbulence are two of the most commonly observed dynamical processes in plasmas, but their relationship is still not fully understood. Using 2.5D kinetic particle-in-cell simulations of both strong turbulence and…
Aims: To investigate magnetic reconnection rates during the coalescence of two current loops in the solar chromosphere, by altering the neutral-hydrogen to proton density ratio, ioniziation/recombination coefficients, collision frequency…
Convection inside the magnetosphere can be regarded as the transfer of magnetic flux and plasma from the magnetotail into the nightside and then convection and drift from there to the dayside. As in many fluid flow situations, the…
Astrophysical fluids are generically turbulent, which means that frozen-in magnetic fields are, at least, weakly stochastic. Therefore realistic studies of astrophysical magnetic reconnection should include the effects of stochastic…
Magnetic reconnection may be the fundamental process allowing energy stored in magnetic fields to be released abruptly, solar flares and coronal mass ejection (CME) being archetypal natural plasma examples. Magnetic reconnection is much too…