Related papers: Plasmoid-dominated Turbulent Reconnection in a Low…
The rate of magnetic reconnection is of the utmost importance in a variety of processes because it controls, for example, the rate energy is released in solar flares, the speed of the Dungey convection cycle in Earth's magnetosphere, and…
Turbulent plasma motion is common in the universe, and invoked in solar flares to drive effective acceleration leading to high energy electrons. Unresolved mass motions are frequently detected in flares from extreme ultraviolet (EUV)…
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 -- 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 invoked as an efficient particle accelerator in a variety of astrophysical sources of non-thermal high-energy radiation. With large-scale two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations of relativistic reconnection…
Magnetized turbulence and magnetic reconnection are often invoked to explain the nonthermal emission observed from a wide variety of astrophysical sources. By means of fully-kinetic 2D and 3D PIC simulations, we investigate the interplay…
Magnetic reconnection is best known from observations of the Sun where it causes solar flares. Observations estimate the reconnection rate a small, but non-negligible fraction of the Alfv\'en speed, so-called fast reconnection. Until…
Plasma in the earth's magnetosphere is subjected to compression during geomagnetically active periods and relaxation in subsequent quiet times. Repeated compression and relaxation is the origin of much of the plasma dynamics and…
Magnetic reconnection is thought to drive a wide variety of dynamic phenomena in the solar atmosphere. Yet the detailed physical mechanisms driving reconnection are difficult to discern in the remote sensing observations that are used to…
Magnetic reconnection in relativistic plasmas -- where the magnetization $\sigma\gg1$ -- is regarded as an efficient particle accelerator, capable of explaining the most dramatic astrophysical flares. We employ two-dimensional (2D)…
Astrophysical plasmas have the remarkable ability to preserve magnetic topology, which inevitably gives rise to the accumulation of magnetic energy within stressed regions including current sheets. This stored energy is often released…
We present a model for plasma heating produced by time-dependent, spatially localized reconnection within a flare current sheet separating skewed magnetic fields. The reconnection creates flux tubes of new connectivity which subsequently…
As a key to undertanding the basic mechanism for fast reconnection in solar flares, plasmoid-induced-reconnection and fractal reconnection are proposed and examined. We first briefly summarize recent solar observations that give us hints on…
Magnetic reconnection at the interface between coronal holes and loops, so-called interchange reconnection, can release the hotter, denser plasma from magnetically confined regions into the heliosphere, contributing to the formation of the…
The spin-down power of a pulsar is thought to be carried away in an MHD wind in which, at least close to the star, the energy transport is dominated by Poynting flux. The pulsar drives a low-frequency wave in this wind, consisting of…
Turbulence is ubiquitous in astrophysical fluids. Therefore it is necessary to study magnetic reconnection in turbulent environments. The model of fast turbulent reconnection proposed in Lazarian & Vishniac 1999 has been successfully tested…
Forced magnetic reconnection is triggered by external perturbations, which are ubiquitous in the solar corona. This process plays a crucial role in the energy release during solar transient events, which are often associated with electric…
Magnetic reconnection is thought to be the dynamical mechanism underlying many explosive phenomena observed both in space and in the laboratory, though the question of how fast magnetic reconnection is triggered in such high Lundquist ($S$)…
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…
Intensity bursts in ultraviolet (UV) to X-ray wavelengths and plasma jets are typical signatures of magnetic reconnection and the associated impulsive heating of the solar atmospheric plasma. To gain new insights into the process,…