Connecting Global Measures of 3D Magnetic Reconnection to Local Kinetic Physics
- Los Alamos National Laboratory
After giving the motivation for the work, slides present the topic under the following headings: Description of LAPD experiment; Actual simulation setup; Simple kinetic theory of ined-tied tearing; Diagnostics to characterizing 3D reconnection; Example #1 - short-tied system; and Example #2 - long line-tied system. Colorful simulations are shown for quasipotential vs field line exponentiation, field line integrated Ohms Law, and correlation with agyrotopy & energy conversion for example #1; and evolution of current density for largest case, field exponentiation vs quasi-potential, and time evolution of magnetic field lines for example #2. To satisfy line-tied boundary conditions, there is need for superposition of oblique modes--the simple two-mode approximation works surprisingly well. For force-free layers with bg >1, the fastest growing periodic modes are oblique with kxλ ~0.5. This implies a minimum length of Ly > 2πλbg. There are strong correlations between σ → Ξ → A0e (observable with spacecraft). Electron pressure tensor is the dominant non-ideal term.
- 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:
- 1196165
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-15-25445
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Plasma Energization: Exchanges between Fluid and Kinetic Scales ; 2015-05-04 - 2015-05-06 ; Los Alamos, New Mexico, United States, Melbourne (Australia), 19-25 Apr 2015
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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