Related papers: Nonlinear Explosive Magnetic Reconnection in a Col…
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…
This short article highlights the unsolved problems of magnetic reconnection in collisionless plasma. The advanced in-situ plasma measurements and simulations enabled scientists to gain a novel understanding of magnetic reconnection. Still,…
A mechanism for fast magnetic reconnection in collisionless plasma is studied for understanding sawtooth collapse in tokamak discharges. Nonlinear growth of the tearing mode driven by electron inertia is analytically estimated by invoking…
Particle acceleration in the magnetic reconnection of electron-positron plasmas is studied by using a particle-in-cell simulation. It is found that a significantly large number of nonthermal particles are generated by the inductive electric…
Magnetic energy around compact objects often dominates over plasma rest mass, and its dissipation can power the object luminosity. We describe a dissipation mechanism which works faster than magnetic reconnection. The mechanism involves two…
Magnetic reconnection is a fundamental physical process in various astrophysical, space, and laboratory environments. Many pieces of evidence for magnetic reconnection have been uncovered. However, its specific processes that could be…
Magnetic reconnection in relativistic collisionless plasmas can accelerate particles and power high-energy emission in various astrophysical systems. Whereas most previous studies focused on relativistic reconnection in pair plasmas, less…
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…
Magnetic reconnection occurs ubiquitously in the universe and is often invoked to explain fast energy release and particle acceleration in high-energy astrophysics. The study of relativistic magnetic reconnection in the magnetically…
Results are presented of a first study of collisionless magnetic reconnection starting from a recently found exact nonlinear force-free Vlasov-Maxwell equilibrium. The initial state has a Harris sheet magnetic field profile in one direction…
X-ray activity of Anomalous X-ray Pulsars and Soft Gamma-Ray Repeaters may result from the heating of their magnetic corona by direct currents dissipated by magnetic reconnection. We investigate the possibility that X-ray flares and bursts…
Gyrokinetic simulations of magnetic reconnection are presented to investigate plasma heating for strongly magnetized, weakly collisional plasmas. For a low plasma beta case, parallel and perpendicular phase mixing strongly enhance energy…
Magnetic reconnection is a plasma phenomenon where a topological rearrangement of magnetic field lines with opposite polarity results in dissipation of magnetic energy into heat, kinetic energy and particle acceleration. Such a phenomenon…
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…
Particle in cell (PIC) simulations of collisionless magnetic reconnection are presented that demonstrate that the electron dissipation region develops a distinct two-scale structure along the outflow direction. The length of the electron…
Magnetic Reconnection is an efficient and fast acceleration mechanism by means of direct electric field acceleration parallel to the magnetic field. Thus, acceleration of particles in reconnection regions is a very important topic in plasma…
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…
We simulate magnetic reconnection in electron-positron (pair) plasma using a collisionless two-fluid model with isotropic pressure. In this model the resistive, Hall, and electrokinetic pressure terms are absent from the curl of Ohm's law,…
Partially-ionized plasmas consist of charged and neutral particles whose mutual collisions modify magnetic reconnection compared with the fully-ionized case. The collisions alter the rate and locations of the magnetic dissipation heating…
Energy dissipation in collisionless plasmas is a longstanding fundamental physics problem. Although it is well known that magnetic reconnection and turbulence are coupled and transport energy from system-size scales to sub-proton scales,…