Dynamic of Current Sheets and Their Associated Particle Energization

Conference · Wed Aug 19 00:00:00 EDT 2015

OSTI ID:1212620

Li, Hui ^[1]; Guo, Fan ^[1]; Makwan, Kirit ^[2]; Li, Xiaocan ^[1]; Zhandrin, Vladimir ^[3]; Daughton, William Scott ^[1]

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1. Los Alamos National Laboratory
2. Univ. Chicago
3. Univ. Washington

Magnetic reconnection in current sheets has relevance to Earth's magnetosphere, solar flares, high-energy astrophysics (pulsar wind nebula (e.g. Crab Nebula), gamma-ray bursts, black hole jets), and laboratory plasma/fusion. Data are shown for several cases with varying values of configuration energy E_c and β. Several conclusions were drawn: Depending on the “configuration energy”, the formation, shape, and lifetime of current sheets can vary. Plasma condition (configuration, β, driving, etc.) strongly affect the efficiency of particle acceleration. For low β and general “configuration energy”, particle heating is expected. For low β, large and long-lived current sheets, it is possible to produce highly non-thermal particles via collisionless plasmoid reconnection.

• Research Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program
• DOE Contract Number: AC52-06NA25396
• OSTI ID: 1212620
• Report Number(s): LA-UR-15-26538
• Resource Relation: Conference: 5th East-Asia School and Workshop on Laboratory, Space, and Astrophysical plasmas ; 2015-08-17 - 2015-08-22 ; POSTECH, Korea, South
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

Astronomy & Astrophysics(79)
79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
Astronomy and Astrophysics