Related papers: On the electron dynamics during island coalescence…
We present an analysis of the properties of the electron velocity distribution during island coalescence in asymmetric reconnection with and without guide field. In a previous study, three main domains were identified, in the case without…
Energetic electrons of up to tens of MeV are created during explosive phenomena in the solar corona. While many theoretical models consider magnetic reconnection as a possible way of generating energetic electrons, the precise roles of…
The physical picture of interacting magnetic islands provides a useful paradigm for certain plasma dynamics in a variety of physical environments, such as the solar corona, the heliosheath, and the Earth's magnetosphere. In this work, we…
One of the key unresolved problems in the study of space plasmas is to explain the production of energetic electrons as magnetic field lines `reconnect' and release energy in a exposive manner. Recent observations suggest possible roles…
A new look at the structure of the electron diffusion region in collisionless magnetic reconnection is presented. The research is based on a particle-in-cell simulation of asymmetric magnetic reconnection, which include a temperature…
Turbulent behavior at sub-proton scales in magnetized plasmas is important for a full understanding of the energetics of astrophysical flows such as the solar wind. We study the formation of electron temperature anisotropy due to…
Detailed comparisons are reported between laboratory observations of electron-scale dissipation layers near a reconnecting X-line and direct two-dimensional full-particle simulations. Many experimental features of the electron layers, such…
Using a kinetic simulation of magnetic reconnection it was recently shown that magnetic-field-aligned electric fields (E||) can be present over large spatial scales in reconnection exhausts. The largest values of E|| are observed within…
Magnetic reconnection and associated heating of ions and electrons in strongly magnetised, weakly collisional plasmas are studied by means of gyrokinetic simulations. It is shown that an appreciable amount of the released magnetic energy is…
We perform a high-resolution two-dimensional fully-kinetic numerical simulation of a turbulent plasma system with observation-driven conditions, in order to investigate the interplay between turbulence, magnetic reconnection, and particle…
Electron heating and mixing during asymmetric reconnection are studied with a 3D kinetic simulation that matches plasma parameters from Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) spacecraft observations of a magnetopause diffusion region. The mixing…
Magnetic flux ropes are commonly observed throughout the heliosphere, and recent studies suggest that interacting flux ropes are associated with some energetic particle events. In this work, we carry out 2D particle-in-cell (PIC)…
Forced magnetic reconnection, a reconnection event triggered by external perturbation, should be ubiquitous in the solar corona. Energy released during such cases can be much greater than that which was introduced by the perturbation. It is…
The equilibrium solutions and coarsening dynamics of strained semi-conductor islands are investigated analytically and numerically. We develop an analytical model to study the effect of surface energy anisotropy on the dynamics coarsening…
Electron-only reconnection is a process recently observed in the Earth's magnetosheath, where magnetic reconnection occurs at electron kinetic scales with only electrons involved. Electron-only reconnection is likely to have a significant…
The interplay between kinetic and macroscopic scales during magnetic reconnection is investigated using particle-in-cell simulations of magnetic island coalescence in the strongly-magnetized, relativistic pair plasma regime. For large…
Fully kinetic simulations are applied to the study of 2D anti-parallel reconnection, elucidating the dynamics by which the electron fluid maintains force balance within both the electron diffusion region (EDR) and the ion diffusion region…
Collisionless magnetic reconnection typically requires kinetic treatments that are, in general, computationally expensive compared to fluid-based models. In this study, we use the magnetohydrodynamics with adaptively embedded…
Electron bulk energization in the diffusion region during anti-parallel symmetric reconnection entails two stages. First, the inflowing electrons are adiabatically trapped and energized by an ambipolar parallel electric field. Next, the…
Magnetic reconnection is a ubiquitous plasma phenomenon that plays a critical role in particle heating and energization. During reconnection, the topology of magnetic field rearranges, depositing energy into the surrounding plasma through…