Related papers: Radiatively Cooled Magnetic Reconnection Experimen…
We present first results from a novel experimental platform which is able to access physics relevant to topics including indirect-drive magnetised ICF; laser energy deposition; various topics in atomic physics; and laboratory astrophysics…
Recent experiments have observed magnetic reconnection in high-energy-density, laser-produced plasma bubbles, with reconnection rates observed to be much higher than can be explained by classical theory. Based on fully kinetic particle…
Magnetic reconnection plays a crucial role in powering solar flares, production of energetic particles, and plasma heating. However, where the magnetic reconnections occur, how and where the released magnetic energy is transported, and how…
We investigate electron heating by magnetic-field-aligned electric fields ($E_\parallel$) during anti-parallel magnetic reconnection in the Earth's magnetotail. Using a statistical sample of 140 reconnection outflows, we infer the…
When magnetic flux emerges from beneath the photosphere it displaces the preexisting field in the corona, and a current sheet generally forms at the boundary between the old and new magnetic domains. Reconnection in the current sheet…
Magnetic reconnection is a fundamental plasma process involving an exchange of magnetic energy to plasma kinetic energy through changes in the magnetic field topology. In many astrophysical plasmas magnetic reconnection plays a key role in…
Magnetic reconnection has long been known to be the most important mechanism not only for mixing the plasmas by changing the magnetic field topology but also for releasing the magnetic field energy into the plasma kinetic energy. During…
By means of two- and three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations, we investigate the process of driven magnetic reconnection at the termination shock of relativistic striped flows. In pulsar winds and in magnetar-powered relativistic…
We study the structure of reverse shocks formed by the collision of supersonic, magnetised plasma flows driven by an inverse (or exploding) wire array with a planar conducting obstacle. We observe that the structure of these reverse shocks…
Magnetic reconnection in strongly magnetized regions around the temperature minimum region of the low solar atmosphere is studied by employing MHD-based simulations of a partially ionized plasma within a reactive 2.5D multi-fluid model. It…
Magnetic reconnection is a process whereby magnetic field lines in different directions "reconnect" with each other, resulting in the rearrangement of magnetic field topology together with the conversion of magnetic field energy into the…
The sudden reconnection of a non-force free 2D current layer, embedded in a low-beta plasma, triggered by the onset of an anomalous resistivity, is studied in detail. The resulting behaviour consists of two main phases. Firstly, a transient…
Experiments were performed to study electron acceleration by intense sub-picosecond laser pulses propagating in sub-mm long plasmas of near critical electron density (NCD). Low density foam layers of 300-500 um thickness were used as…
Flux emergence is ubiquitous in the Sun's lower atmosphere, where the emerging magnetic flux can reconnect with the pre-existing magnetic field. We investigate plasmoid formation and the resulting multi-thermal emissions during…
We study the energy-release process in the confined X1.6 flare that occurred on 22 October 2014 in AR 12192. Magnetic-reconnection rates and reconnection fluxes are derived from three different data sets: space-based data from the…
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,…
We numerically study magnetic reconnection on different spatial scales and at different heights in the weakly ionized plasma of the low solar atmosphere (around $300-800$~km above the solar surface) within a reactive 2.5 D multi-fluid…
Relativistic jets are believed to be born magnetically dominated. Very and ultra-high energy cosmic rays can be efficiently accelerated by magnetic reconnection in these sources. We here demonstrate this directly, with no extrapolations to…
Magnetic reconnection is a ubiquitous process in plasma physics, driving rapid and energetic events such as coronal mass ejections. Reconnection between magnetic fields with arbitrary shear can be decomposed into an anti-parallel,…
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…