skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Magnetic Energy Release, Plasma Dynamics, and Particle Acceleration in Relativistic Turbulent Magnetic Reconnection

Journal Article · · The Astrophysical Journal

In strongly magnetized astrophysical plasma systems, magnetic reconnection is believed to be the primary process during which explosive energy release and particle acceleration occur, leading to significant high-energy emission. Past years have witnessed active development of kinetic modeling of relativistic magnetic reconnection, supporting this magnetically dominated scenario. A much less explored issue in studies of relativistic reconnection is the consequence of three-dimensional dynamics, where turbulent structures are naturally generated as various types of instabilities develop. This paper presents a series of three-dimensional, fully kinetic simulations of relativistic turbulent magnetic reconnection (RTMR) in positron–electron plasmas with system domains much larger than kinetic scales. Our simulations start from a force-free current sheet with several different modes of long-wavelength magnetic field perturbations, which drive additional turbulence in the reconnection region. Because of this, the current layer breaks up and the reconnection region quickly evolves into a turbulent layer filled with coherent structures such as flux ropes and current sheets. Additionally, we find that plasma dynamics in RTMR is vastly different from its 2D counterpart in many aspects. The flux ropes evolve rapidly after their generation, and can be completely disrupted by the secondary kink instability. This turbulent evolution leads to superdiffusive behavior of magnetic field lines as seen in MHD studies of turbulent reconnection. Meanwhile, nonthermal particle acceleration and the timescale for energy release can be very fast and do not depend strongly on the turbulence amplitude. Additionally, the main acceleration mechanism is a Fermi-like acceleration process supported by the motional electric field, whereas the nonideal electric field acceleration plays a subdominant role. We also discuss possible observational implications of three-dimensional RTMR in high-energy astrophysics.

Research Organization:
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program; National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); National Science Foundation (NSF)
Grant/Contract Number:
89233218CNA000001; NNH17AE68I; 80NSSC20K0627; 80NSSC18K0289; PHY-1902867
OSTI ID:
1861295
Report Number(s):
LA-UR-20-26005; TRN: US2305471
Journal Information:
The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 919, Issue 2; ISSN 0004-637X
Publisher:
IOP PublishingCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (75)

Formation of Power-law Electron Energy Spectra in Three-dimensional Low- β Magnetic Reconnection journal October 2019
Relativistic Reconnection and Particle Acceleration journal September 2012
An Overview of X-Ray Polarimetry of Astronomical Sources journal March 2018
Scaling of Magnetic Reconnection in Relativistic Collisionless Pair Plasmas journal March 2015
Magnetohydrodynamic Turbulence Revisited journal August 1997
The mechanisms of electron heating and acceleration during magnetic reconnection journal September 2014
Bifurcated Structure of the Electron Diffusion Region in Three-Dimensional Magnetic Reconnection journal June 2013
Turbulent Magnetohydrodynamic Reconnection Mediated by the Plasmoid Instability journal February 2016
Particle Acceleration in Reconnecting Current Sheets with a Nonzero Magnetic Field journal May 1996
Recent progress on particle acceleration and reconnection physics during magnetic reconnection in the magnetically-dominated relativistic regime journal August 2020
Turbulent magnetic reconnection in two dimensions journal October 2009
Efficient Production of High-Energy Nonthermal Particles During Magnetic Reconnection in a Magnetically Dominated Ion–Electron Plasma journal February 2016
Exploring the Acceleration Mechanisms for Particle Injection and Power-law Formation during Transrelativistic Magnetic Reconnection journal August 2020
The Critical Role of Collisionless Plasma Energization on the Structure of Relativistic Magnetic Reconnection journal March 2020
The Anisotropy of Magnetohydrodynamic Alfvenic Turbulence journal August 2000
Magnetically striped relativistic magnetohydrodynamic winds - The Crab Nebula revisited journal January 1990
Reconnection in a Weakly Stochastic Field journal June 1999
Large-scale Compression Acceleration during Magnetic Reconnection in a Low- β Plasma journal October 2018
Blazar flares powered by plasmoids in relativistic reconnection journal July 2016
Radiation and Polarization Signatures from Magnetic Reconnection in Relativistic Jets. I. A Systematic Study journal October 2020
Statistics of Reconnection-driven Turbulence journal March 2017
Determining the Dominant Acceleration Mechanism during Relativistic Magnetic Reconnection in Large-scale Systems journal July 2019
Kelvin–Helmholtz versus Tearing Instability: What Drives Turbulence in Stochastic Reconnection? journal March 2020
Spectral Energy Transfer and Dissipation of Magnetic Energy from Fluid to Kinetic Scales journal January 2007
Understanding the TeV emission from a distant blazar PKS 1424+240 in a lepto-hadronic jet model journal January 2015
Gamma-Ray Flares from the Crab Nebula journal January 2011
Collisionless magnetic reconnection in large-scale electron-positron plasmas journal July 2007
Dynamic changes of emitting electron distribution in the jet of 3C 279: signatures of acceleration and cooling journal December 2015
Pulsar Wind Nebulae as Cosmic Pevatrons: A Current Sheet’s Tale journal May 2012
Electron acceleration from contracting magnetic islands during reconnection journal October 2006
The Hall fields and fast magnetic reconnection journal January 2008
Toward a theory of interstellar turbulence. 2: Strong alfvenic turbulence journal January 1995
An Exceptional Very High Energy Gamma-Ray Flare of PKS 2155-304 journal July 2007
Three-Dimensional Spontaneous Magnetic Reconnection journal December 2016
A Kinetic Transport Theory for Particle Acceleration and Transport in Regions of Multiple Contracting and Reconnecting Inertial-Scale flux Ropes journal March 2015
Particle Acceleration in Kinetic Simulations of Nonrelativistic Magnetic Reconnection with Different Ion–Electron Mass Ratios journal June 2019
Role of electron physics in the development of turbulent magnetic reconnection in collisionless plasmas journal April 2011
Plasmoids in relativistic reconnection, from birth to adulthood: first they grow, then they go journal July 2016
Instability of current sheets and formation of plasmoid chains journal October 2007
The role of three-dimensional transport in driving enhanced electron acceleration during magnetic reconnection journal September 2017
Numerical Tests of fast Reconnection in Weakly Stochastic Magnetic Fields journal June 2009
Recent Evolution in the Theory of Magnetic Reconnection and Its Connection with Turbulence journal September 2013
The Role of the Guide Field in Relativistic Pair Plasma Reconnection journal April 2008
Particle acceleration by ultrarelativistic shocks: theory and simulations journal December 2001
A reconnection switch to trigger gamma-ray burst jet dissipation: GRB reconnection switch journal November 2011
Transition from collisional to kinetic regimes in large-scale reconnection layers journal August 2009
Fast Magnetic Reconnection with Turbulence in High Lundquist Number Limit journal September 2020
RoboPol: connection between optical polarization plane rotations and gamma-ray flares in blazars journal October 2017
Reconnection in a Striped Pulsar Wind journal January 2001
Turbulent magnetic reconnection journal January 1986
The Internal-Collision-Induced Magnetic Reconnection and Turbulence (Icmart) Model of Gamma-Ray Bursts journal December 2010
Energy Spectrum of Particles Accelerated in Relativistic Collisionless Shocks journal March 2005
Particle Acceleration during Magnetic Reconnection in a Low-beta Plasma journal June 2017
Large-amplitude Blazar Polarization Angle Swing as a Signature of Magnetic Reconnection journal August 2018
Particle Acceleration and Plasma Dynamics During Magnetic Reconnection in the Magnetically Dominated Regime journal June 2015
Production of the large scale superluminal ejections of the microquasar GRS 1915+105 by violent magnetic reconnection journal September 2005
GRB and blazar jets shining through their stripes journal January 2019
The Roles of Fluid Compression and Shear in Electron Energization during Magnetic Reconnection journal March 2018
Thermal-Inertial Effects on Magnetic Reconnection in Relativistic Pair Plasmas journal July 2014
Ultrahigh performance three-dimensional electromagnetic relativistic kinetic plasma simulation journal May 2008
The Onset of 3D Magnetic Reconnection and Heating in the Solar Corona journal March 2020
Rapid magnetic reconnection caused by finite amplitude fluctuations journal January 1985
Fast TeV variability in blazars: jets in a jet journal May 2009
Dissipation in Poynting‐Flux–dominated Flows: The σ‐Problem of the Crab Pulsar Wind journal July 2003
Nonthermal Particle Acceleration in 3D Relativistic Magnetic Reconnection in Pair Plasma journal July 2017
Multi-scale dynamics of magnetic flux tubes and inverse magnetic energy transfer journal July 2020
Plasmoid formation in global GRMHD simulations and AGN flares journal May 2020
Turbulence in Magnetized Pair Plasmas journal October 2018
Explosive reconnection in magnetars: Explosive reconnection in magnetars journal November 2003
Computing the reconnection rate in turbulent kinetic layers by using electron mixing to identify topology journal May 2014
On the relativistic magnetic reconnection journal March 2005
Kinematics of relativistic magnetic reconnection journal January 1994
Radiation signatures from striped blazar jet journal January 2021
Fully kinetic simulations of undriven magnetic reconnection with open boundary conditions journal July 2006
Polarization Signatures of Kink Instabilities in the Blazar Emission Region from Relativistic Magnetohydrodynamic Simulations journal January 2017

Cited By (1)

Scaling of Magnetic Dissipation and Particle Acceleration in ABC Fields text January 2021