New Measure of the Dissipation Region in Collisionless Magnetic Reconnection

Journal Article · Fri May 13 00:00:00 EDT 2011 · Physical Review Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVLETT.106.195003· OSTI ID:21538336

Zenitani, Seiji; Hesse, Michael; Klimas, Alex; Kuznetsova, Masha ^[1]

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1. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771 (United States)

A new measure to identify a small-scale dissipation region in collisionless magnetic reconnection is proposed. The energy transfer from the electromagnetic field to plasmas in the electron's rest frame is formulated as a Lorentz-invariant scalar quantity. The measure is tested by two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations in typical configurations: symmetric and asymmetric reconnection, with and without the guide field. The innermost region surrounding the reconnection site is accurately located in all cases. We further discuss implications for nonideal MHD dissipation.

• OSTI ID: 21538336
• Journal Information: Physical Review Letters, Vol. 106, Issue 19; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.195003; (c) 2011 American Institute of Physics; ISSN 0031-9007
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
ASYMMETRY
ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELDS
ELECTRONS
ENERGY TRANSFER
LORENTZ INVARIANCE
MAGNETIC RECONNECTION
MAGNETOHYDRODYNAMICS
PLASMA
SIMULATION
SYMMETRY
TWO-DIMENSIONAL CALCULATIONS
ELEMENTARY PARTICLES
FERMIONS
FLUID MECHANICS
HYDRODYNAMICS
INVARIANCE PRINCIPLES
LEPTONS
MECHANICS