Microphysics of Magnetic Reconnection: Experiments on RSX and Simulation

Details Microphysics of Magnetic Reconnection: Experiments on RSX and Simulation Microphysics of Magnetic Reconnection: Experiments on RSX and Simulation

Dec 2003

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2003agufmsh31a1097i&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2003, abstract #SH31A-1097

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2740 Magnetospheric Configuration And Dynamics, 2744 Magnetotail, 7835 Magnetic Reconnection

Scientific paper

Using a unique LANL laboratory facility, the Reconnection Scaling Experiment (RSX), and a state-of-the-art LANL numerical code, CELESTE3D, we are beginning an experimental and numerical study of the microphysics of 2D and 3D "fast magnetic reconnection". RSX at Los Alamos National Laboratory is already operational and producing research plasmas. In RSX, the radial boundaries and thus the reconnection geometry are not constrained to two dimensions. It is capable of investigating 3D magnetic reconnection occurring in a free-boundary 3D linear geometry during the coalescence of two parallel current plasma channels, which are produced by using plasma gun technology. RSX can also scale the guide field (ion gyroradius) independently of other reconnection parameters. Frontier reconnection research invokes (1) `anomalous' microinstability-induced resistivity, which enhances dissipation rates inside the reconnection layer and (2) terms of the two-fluid generalized Ohm's law which introduce whistler and kinetic Alfvén wave dynamics. The two-fluid approach predicts (a) a two-spatial-scale spatial structure of the reconnection layer, with outer (inner) thickness equal to the ion (electron) skin depth and (b) Hall currents in the reconnection plane and out-of-plane magnetic field on the electron scale. We will show spatially resolved RSX experimental measurements of the dynamics of the reconnection layer, and take advantage of our scaling capabilities to address the applicability of the two-fluid approach.

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