Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
Apr 2001
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001aps..apr.p1002d&link_type=abstract
American Physical Society, April Meeting, April 28 - May 1, 2001 Washington, DC Bulletin of the American Physical Society, Vol.
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Scientific paper
Magnetic fields play a fundamental role in the dynamics of a variety of plasma systems, ranging from laboratory fusion experiments to the solar corona and astrophysical accretion discs. Understanding both the generation and the dissipation of magnetic energy is essential to understanding these systems. Observations indicate that the dissipation or release of magnetic energy typically occurs in explosive events, examples being solar and stellar flares, substorms in the Earth's magnetosphere, and disruptions in laboratory fusion experiments. The release of magnetic energy through the simple Ohmic dissipation of the currents sustaining the magnetic fields is far too slow to explain the observations. The energy release occurs through a process called magnetic reconnection, in which regions of oppositely directed magnetic field self-annihilate, converting magnetic free energy into energetic beams, high velocity flows and thermal energy. The challenge in the thirty year history of research of this phenomenon has been to understand the explosive nature of these events. Very early it was recognized that the magnetic field topology close to the region where the magnetic field reverses plays a major role in controlling the rate of energy conversion and that changes in topology can only occur in a narrow boundary layer around the region of reversal of the magnetic field. Thus, the release of magnetic energy in a macroscopically global system is controlled by the dynamics of a boundary layer at very small scales. There has recently been great progress in understanding the structure of this reconnection boundary layer and in particular the role of dispersive waves in facilitating the fast release of magnetic energy. The talk will review key observational data and emphasize basic physical principles to introduce the topic to the non-specialist.
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