Study of energy conversion and partitioning in the magnetic reconnection layer of a laboratory plasma

Yamada, Masaaki; Yoo, Jongsoo; Jara-Almonte, Jonathan; Daughton, William; Ji, Hantao; Kulsrud, Russell M.; Myers, Clayton E.

doi:10.1063/1.4920960

Title: Study of energy conversion and partitioning in the magnetic reconnection layer of a laboratory plasma

Journal Article · Fri May 15 00:00:00 EDT 2015 · Physics of Plasmas

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4920960· OSTI ID:1254743

^[1]; Yoo, Jongsoo ^[1]; Jara-Almonte, Jonathan ^[1]; Daughton, William ^[2]; Ji, Hantao ^[1];

^[1]; Myers, Clayton E. ^[1]

Princeton Plasma Physics Lab. (PPPL), Princeton, NJ (United States)
Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

The most important feature of magnetic reconnection is that it energizes plasma particles by converting magnetic energy to particle energy, the exact mechanisms by which this happens are yet to be determined despite a long history of reconnection research. Recently, we have reported our results on the energy conversion and partitioning in a laboratory reconnection layer in a short communication [Yamada et al., Nat. Commun. 5, 4474 (2014)]. The present paper is a detailed elaboration of this report together with an additional dataset with different boundary sizes. Our experimental study of the reconnection layer is carried out in the two-fluid physics regime where ions and electrons move quite differently. We have observed that the conversion of magnetic energy occurs across a region significantly larger than the narrow electron diffusion region. A saddle shaped electrostatic potential profile exists in the reconnection plane, and ions are accelerated by the resulting electric field at the separatrices. These accelerated ions are then thermalized by re-magnetization in the downstream region. A quantitative inventory of the converted energy is presented in a reconnection layer with a well-defined, variable boundary. We also carried out a systematic study of the effects of boundary conditions on the energy inventory. This study concludes that about 50% of the inflowing magnetic energy is converted to particle energy, 2/3 of which is ultimately transferred to ions and 1/3 to electrons. When assisted by another set of magnetic reconnection experiment data and numerical simulations with different sizes of monitoring box, it is also observed that the observed features of energy conversion and partitioning do not depend on the size of monitoring boundary across the range of sizes tested from 1.5 to 4 ion skin depths.

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Research Organization:: Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), Princeton, NJ (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE

Grant/Contract Number:: NNH11AQ45I; DE-AC0209CH11466; AC0209CH11466

OSTI ID:: 1254743

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1228246

Report Number(s):: PPPL-5101; PHPAEN

Journal Information:: Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 22, Issue 5; ISSN 1070-664X

Publisher:: American Institute of Physics (AIP)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 27 works

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An experimental platform for pulsed-power driven magnetic reconnection Hare, J. D.; Suttle, L. G.; Lebedev, S. V. Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 25, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5016280	journal	May 2018
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Perspectives on magnetic reconnection Zweibel, Ellen G.; Yamada, Masaaki Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, Vol. 472, Issue 2196 https://doi.org/10.1098/rspa.2016.0479	journal	December 2016
Two-Stage Bulk Electron Heating in the Diffusion Region of Anti-Parallel Symmetric Reconnection Le, Ari; Egedal, Jan; Daughton, William arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1609.09508	text	January 2016
Laboratory Space Physics: Investigating the Physics of Space Plasmas in the Laboratory Howes, Gregory G. arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1802.04154	text	January 2018
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