Related papers: Plasmoid statistics in relativistic magnetic recon…
Blobs, or quasi-spherical emission regions containing relativistic particles and magnetic fields, are often assumed ad hoc in emission models of relativistic astrophysical jets, yet their physical origin is still not well understood. Here,…
Magnetic reconnection mediated by the hyper-resistive plasmoid instability is studied with both linear analysis and nonlinear simulations. The linear growth rate is found to scale as $S_{H}^{1/6}$ with respect to the hyper-resistive…
A numerical study of magnetic reconnection in the large-Lundquist-number ($S$), plasmoid-dominated regime is carried out for $S$ up to $10^7$. The theoretical model of Uzdensky {\it et al.} [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 105}, 235002 (2010)] is…
Magnetic reconnection is a process that converts magnetic energy into plasma energy by changing the magnetic field line topology. The outstanding question is why the reconnection rate is $\mathcal{O}(0.01 - 0.1)$ in many astrophysical…
Magnetic reconnection is often considered as the primary particle acceleration mechanism in a magnetized blazar zone environment. The majority of radiation in the reconnection layer comes from plasmoids and their mergers. In particular,…
We investigate the distribution of particle acceleration sites, independently of the actual acceleration mechanism, during plasmoid-dominated, relativistic collisionless magnetic reconnection by analyzing the results of a particle-in-cell…
We investigate the Fermi acceleration of charged particles in 2D MHD anti-parallel plasmoid reconnection, finding a drastic enhancement in energization rate $\dot{\varepsilon}$ over a standard Fermi model of $\dot{\varepsilon} \sim…
In this paper, we investigate the evolution of the plasmoid-chain in a Poynting-dominated plasma. We model the relativistic current sheet with cold background plasma using the relativistic resistive magnetohydrodynamic approximation, and…
Two-dimensional relativistic particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations of radiative magnetic reconnection in pair plasmas with multiple interacting current sheets are carried out to mimic the dynamics in high-energy astrophysical environments,…
Magnetic reconnection is a ubiquitous and fundamental process in plasmas by which magnetic fields change their topology and release magnetic energy. Despite decades of research, the physics governing the reconnection process in many…
Magnetic reconnection is thought to be the driver for many explosive phenomena in the universe. The energy release and particle acceleration during reconnection have been proposed as a mechanism for producing high-energy emissions and…
Powerful flares from blazars with short ($\sim$ min) variability timescales are challenging for current models of blazar emission. Here, we present a physically motivated ab initio model for blazar flares based on the results of recent…
The effects of a finite guide field on the distribution of plasmoids in high-Lundquist-number current sheets undergoing magnetic reconnection in large plasmas are investigated with statistical models. Merging of plasmoids is taken into…
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 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…
Magnetic reconnection is invoked as one of the primary mechanisms to produce energetic particles. We employ large-scale three-dimensional (3D) particle-in-cell simulations of reconnection in magnetically-dominated ($\sigma=10$) pair plasmas…
A conceptual model of resistive magnetic reconnection via a stochastic plasmoid chain is proposed. The global reconnection rate is shown to be independent of the Lundquist number. The distribution of fluxes in the plasmoids is shown to be…
Magnetic reconnection is a fundamental plasma process that is thought to play a key role in the production of nonthermal particles associated with explosive phenomena in space physics and astrophysics. Experiments at high-energy-density…
Magnetic reconnection is a ubiquitous phenomenon for magnetized plasmas and leads to the rapid reconfiguration of magnetic field lines. During reconnection events, plasma is heated and accelerated until the magnetic field lines enclose and…
Plasmoids -- magnetized quasi-circular structures formed self-consistently in reconnecting current sheets -- were previously considered to be the graveyards of energetic particles. In this paper, we demonstrate the important role of…