Related papers: Magnetic reconnection and thermal equilibration
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…
Regardless of how small non-ideal effects may be, phenomena associated with changes in magnetic field line connections are frequently observed to occur on an Alfv\'enic time scale. Since it is mathematically impossible for magnetic field…
Magnetic reconnection is a process that changes magnetic field topology in highly conducting fluids. Traditionally, magnetic reconnection was associated mostly with solar flares. In reality, the process must be ubiquitous as astrophysical…
In solar atmosphere, magnetic reconnection alters the topological connectivity, and magnetic energy is released. However, the length change of the reconnecting structures has rarely been reported. To identify the evolution of the…
Null and X-points are not themselves directly important to magnetic reconnection because distinguishable field lines do not approach them closely. Even in a collision-free plasma, magnetic field lines that approach each other on a scale…
We use a combination of perturbation theory and numerical techniques to study the equilibration of two interacting fields which are initially at thermal equilibrium at different temperatures. Using standard rules of quantum field theory, we…
Magnetic reconnection occurs when two plasmas having co-planar but anti-parallel magnetic fields meet. At the contact point, the field is locally annihilated and the magnetic energy can be released into the surrounding plasma. Theory and…
The braiding of the solar coronal magnetic field via photospheric motions - with subsequent relaxation and magnetic reconnection -- is one of the most widely debated ideas of solar physics. We readdress the theory in the light of…
It is shown that gravitating magnetic fields affect the evolution of curvature perturbations in a way that is reminiscent of a pristine non-adiabatic pressure fluctuation. The gauge-invariant evolution of curvature perturbations is used to…
The operation of ITER will require reliable simulations in order to avoid major damage to the device from disruptions. Disruptions are the sudden breakup of magnetic surfaces across the plasma volume -- a fast magnetic reconnection. This…
Fast magnetic reconnection is defined by the topology of the magnetic field lines changing on a timescale that is approximately an order of magnitude longer than the topology-conserving ideal-evolution timescale. Fast reconnection is an…
Although magnetic reconnection takes place in three-dimensional space, reconnection theory has focused on two-dimensional models for more than sixty years. Well-posed three-dimensional mathematics associated with the theory of fluid mixing…
In laboratory and natural plasmas of practical interest, the spatial scale $\Delta_d$ at which magnetic field lines lose distinguishability differs enormously from the scale $a$ of magnetic reconnection across the field lines. In the solar…
Reconnection is the process by which magnetic fields in a conducting fluid change their topology. This process is essential for understanding a wide variety of astrophysical processes, including stellar and galactic dynamos and…
The idea of gauging (i.e. making local) symmetries of a physical system is a central feature of many modern field theories. Usually, one starts with a Lagrangian for some scalar or spinor matter fields, with the Lagrangian being invariant…
Thermal instability in an electron-ion magnetized plasma, which is relevant in the intragalactic medium (IGM) of galaxy clusters, solar corona, and other two-component plasma objects is investigated. We apply the multicomponent plasma…
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…
Mathematics demonstrates that an ideally evolving magnetic field has an exponentially increasing sensitivity to non-ideal effects for all but truly exceptional evolutions. On a time scale that depends only logarithmically on the magnitude…
We review the basic concepts of magnetic reconnection and propose a general framework for the astrophysical reconnection at large scales. Magnetic reconnection is the rearrangement of magnetic field topology. The conventional Sweet-Parker…
Magnetic field reconnection is often invoked to explain electromagnetic energy conversion in planetary magnetospheres, stellar coronae, and other astrophysical objects. Because of the huge dynamic range of magnetic fields in these bodies,…