Related papers: Electron-only Reconnection in Ion-scale Current Sh…
Electron dynamics and energization are one of the key components of magnetic field dissipation in collisionless reconnection. In 2D numerical simulations of magnetic reconnection, the main mechanism that limits the current density and…
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…
Mini-magnetospheres are small ion-scale structures that are well-suited to studying kinetic-scale physics of collisionless space plasmas. Such ion-scale magnetospheres can be found on local regions of the Moon, associated with the lunar…
When electron inertia is the only non-ideal effect in the evolution of a magnetic field $\vec{B}$, the field lines of $\vec{B}$ reconnect, but the lines of a related field $\vec{\mathcal{B}}$ do not. $\vec{\mathcal{B}} \equiv \vec{B} +…
High-energy astrophysical systems and compact objects are frequently modeled using ideal relativistic magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) or force-free electrodynamic (FFE) simulations, with the underlying assumption that the discretisation from the…
Magnetic reconnection has been observed in the transition region of quasi-parallel shocks. In this work, the particle-in-cell method is used to simulate three-dimensional reconnection in a quasi-parallel shock. The shock transition region…
We present a statistical analysis of ion distributions in magnetic reconnection jets using data from the Magnetospheric Multiscale spacecraft. Compared with the quiet plasma in which the jet propagates, we often find anisotropic and…
To understand the essential physics needed to reproduce magnetic reconnection events in 2.5-D particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations, we revisit the Geospace Environmental Modeling (GEM) setup. We set up a 2-D Harris current sheet (that also…
Using a recently developed analytical procedure, we determine the rate of magnetic reconnection in the "standard" model of eruptive solar flares. During the late phase, the neutral line is located near the lower tip of the reconnection…
We report electrostatic Debye-scale turbulence developing within the diffusion region of asymmetric magnetopause reconnection with moderate guide field using observations by the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission. We show that Buneman…
The debate surrounding fast magnetic energy dissipation by magnetic reconnection has remained a fundamental topic in the plasma universe, not only in the Earth's magnetosphere but in astrophysical objects such as pulsar magnetospheres and…
We propose and simulate a laboratory platform to study the effects of positrons in magnetic reconnection using laser-driven capacitor coils. Using particle-in-cell simulations, we show that externally injected MeV electron-positron pairs…
We perform a three-dimensional (3D) global simulation of Earth's magnetosphere with kinetic reconnection physics to study the flux transfer events (FTEs) and dayside magnetic reconnection with the recently developed magnetohydrodynamics…
The impact of high-speed jets -- dynamic pressure enhancements in the magnetosheath -- on the Earth's magnetopause has been observed to trigger local magnetic reconnection. We perform a three-dimensional hybrid simulation to study the…
The twisted local magnetic field at the front or rear regions of the magnetic clouds (MCs) associated with interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs) is often nearly opposite to the direction of the ambient interplanetary magnetic field…
The Magnetic cloud boundary layer (BL) is a dynamic region formed by the interaction of the magnetic cloud (MC) and the ambient solar wind. In the present study, we comparatively investigate the proton and electron mean flux variations in…
We perform a theoretical and numerical study of anti-parallel 2D magnetic reconnection with asymmetries in the density and reconnecting magnetic field strength in addition to a bulk flow shear across the reconnection site in the plane of…
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…
The structure of the diffusion regions in antiparallel magnetic reconnection is investigated by means of a theory and a Vlasov simulation. The magnetic diffusion is considered as relaxation to the frozen-in state, which depends on a…
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…