Experiments on 3D Evolution of Spontaneous Magnetic Reconnection

Details Experiments on 3D Evolution of Spontaneous Magnetic Reconnection Experiments on 3D Evolution of Spontaneous Magnetic Reconnection

Dec 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008agufmsm22a..04k&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2008, abstract #SM22A-04

Physics

2723 Magnetic Reconnection (7526, 7835), 7526 Magnetic Reconnection (2723, 7835), 7831 Laboratory Studies And Experimental Techniques, 7835 Magnetic Reconnection (2723, 7526)

Scientific paper

We conduct experiments in the Versatile Toroidal Facility (VTF) at MIT to study magnetic reconnection in the strong guide-field regime. A set of coils inside the vacuum chamber is used to drive the reconnection by effectively pulling their currents away from the x-line. By Faraday's Law, a toroidal electric field is induced. The plasma responds initially with steady reconnection, but then after 10 tA (where the Alfven time is tA = L/vA, L is the machine size and vA is the Alfven velocity) there is a spontaneous burst of fast reconnection [1]. Although the external drive is axisymmetric, we observe non-axisymmetry (3D effects) in the plasma's response: the reconnection event starts at one toroidal angle and then propagates around the machine in one Alfven time (10 μ s). Our diagnostics include multiple arrays of magnetic and Langmuir probes at multiple toroidal angles. These diagnostics allow us to measure the 3D properties of this low- collisionality reconnection and identify an external interchange mode as the principle trigger of the event. [1] J. Egedal et al, Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 015003 (2007)

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