Related papers: Nonlinear Explosive Magnetic Reconnection in a Col…
We investigate the onset of driven collisionless reconnection and plasmoid formation in a magnetically dominated pair plasma, using 2D Particle-in-Cell simulations. Two force-free flux tubes of radius $R$ are initially pushed together with…
Recent theory has demonstrated a novel physics regime for magnetic reconnection in high-energy-density plasmas where the magnetic field is advected by heat flux via the Nernst effect. Here we elucidate the physics of the electron…
Using a simple two-dimensional, zero-beta model, we explore the manner by which reconnection at a current sheet releases and dissipates free magnetic energy. We find that only a small fraction (3%-11% depending on current sheet size) of the…
Magnetic reconnection is a fundamental plasma process that converts magnetic energy into bulk flow energy, thermal energy, and nonthermal particle acceleration. Despite its importance, the statistical properties of the turbulent…
This paper shows that magnetic reconnection could be an important heating process in cosmic gases. In any volume where magnetized plasmas collide, the dissipation of magnetic energy via reconnection seems to be unavoidable. Since most…
Magnetic reconnection is a primary driver of particle acceleration processes in space and astrophysical plasmas. Understanding how particles are accelerated and the resulting particle energy spectra is among the central topics in…
Magnetic reconnection is a fundamental process in a plasma that facilitates the release of energy stored in the magnetic field by permitting a change in the magnetic topology. In this article we present a review of the current state of…
A recently published, new analysis of current sheets updated the classic Harris 1D static solution by considering multiple classes of charged particle trajectories in a generalized dynamic current sheet. It used a 1D PIC simulation to…
We present a model for the spontaneous onset of fast magnetic reconnection in a weakly collisional plasma, such as the solar corona. When a current layer of macroscopic width undergoes collisional (Sweet-Parker) reconnection, a narrow…
The reversibility of the transfer of energy from the magnetic field to the surrounding plasma during magnetic reconnection is examined. Trajectories of test particles in an analytic model of the fields demonstrate that irreversibility is…
Magnetic reconnection is a leading mechanism for dissipating magnetic energy and accelerating nonthermal particles in Poynting-flux dominated flows. In this letter, we investigate nonthermal particle acceleration during magnetic…
Magnetic reconnection provides the primary source for explosive energy release, plasma heating and particle acceleration in many astrophysical environments. The last years witnessed a revival of interest in the MHD tearing instability as a…
I review a new rapidly growing area of high-energy plasma astrophysics --- radiative magnetic reconnection, i.e., a reconnection regime where radiation reaction influences reconnection dynamics, energetics, and nonthermal particle…
A model of global magnetic reconnection rate in relativistic collisionless plasmas is developed and validated by the fully kinetic simulation. Through considering the force balance at the upstream and downstream of the diffusion region, we…
In solar flares and other astrophysical systems, a major challenge for solving particle acceleration problem associated with magnetic reconnection is the enormous scale separation between kinetic scales and observed reconnection scale.…
We show how the conversion of magnetic field energy via magnetic reconnection can progress in a fully three-dimensional, fast, volume-filling regime. An initial configuration representative of many laboratory, space and astrophysical…
The ubiquitous turbulence in astrophysical plasmas is important for both magnetic reconnection and reconnection acceleration. We study the particle acceleration during fast 3D turbulent reconnection with reconnection-driven turbulence.…
We use kinetic particle-in-cell and magnetohydrodynamic simulations supported by an observational dataset to investigate magnetic reconnection in clusters of null points in space plasma. The magnetic configuration under investigation is…
Observations of gamma-ray-bursts and jets from active galactic nuclei reveal that the jet flow is characterized by a high radiative efficiency and that the dissipative mechanism must be a powerful accelerator of non-thermal particles.…
Modeling collisionless magnetic reconnection rate is an outstanding challenge in basic plasma physics research. While the seemingly universal rate of an order $\mathcal{O}(0.1)$ is often reported in the low-$\beta$ regime, it is not clear…