Electron and ion heating characteristics during magnetic reconnection in MAST
H. Tanabe, T. Yamada, T. Watanabe, K. Gi, K. Kadowaki, M. Inomoto, R. Imazawa, M. Gryaznevich, C. Michael, B. Crowley, N. Conway, R. Scannell, J. Harrison, I. F… 展开作者
H. Tanabe, T. Yamada, T. Watanabe, K. Gi, K. Kadowaki, M. Inomoto, R. Imazawa, M. Gryaznevich, C. Michael, B. Crowley, N. Conway, R. Scannell, J. Harrison, I. Fitzgerald, A. Meakins, N. Hawkes, the MAST team, C. Z. Cheng, Y. Ono
备注：
The article has been submitted to the journal of "Physical Review Letters" on 05/May/2015 (Code number: LE15049 (5 pages, 5 figures))
Local electron and ion heating characteristics during merging reconnection startup on the MAST spherical tokamak have been revealed for the first time using a 130 channel YAG-TS system and a new 32 chord ion Doppler tomography diagnostic. 2D local profile measurement of $T_e$, $n_e$ and $T_i$ detect highly localized electron heating at the X point and bulk ion heating downstream. For the push merging experiment under high guide field condition, thick layer of closed flux surface formed by reconnected field sustains the heating profile for more than electron and ion energy relaxation time $τ^E_{ei}\sim4-10$ms, both heating profiles finally form triple peak structure at the X point and downstream. Toroidal guide field mostly contributes the formation of peaked electron heating profile at the X point. The localized heating increases with higher guide field, while bulk downstream ion heating is unaffected by the change in the guide field under MAST conditions ($B_t>3B_{rec}$).
Gyrokinetic simulations of magnetic reconnection are presented to investigate plasma heating for strongly magnetized, weakly collisional plasmas. For a low plasma beta case, parallel and perpendicular phase mixing strongly enhance energy dissipation yielding electron heating. Heating occurs for a long time period after a dynamical process of magnetic reconnection ended. For a higher beta case, the ratio of ion to electron dissipation rate increases, suggesting that ion heating (via phase-mixing) may become an important dissipation channel in high beta plasmas.
Magnetic reconnection and associated heating of ions and electrons in strongly magnetised, weakly collisional plasmas are studied by means of gyrokinetic simulations. It is shown that an appreciable amount of the released magnetic energy is dissipated to yield (irreversible) electron and ion heating via phase mixing. Electron heating is mostly localized to the magnetic island, not the current sheet, and occurs after the dynamical reconnection stage. Ion heating is comparable to electron heating only in high-beta plasmas, and results from both parallel phase mixing and perpendicular phase mixin…
Electron bulk energization in the diffusion region during anti-parallel symmetric reconnection entails two stages. First, the inflowing electrons are adiabatically trapped and energized by an ambipolar parallel electric field. Next, the electrons gain energy from the reconnection electric field as they undergo meandering motion. These collisionless mechanisms have been decribed previously, and they lead to highly-structured electron velocity distributions. Nevertheless, a simplified control-volume analysis gives estimates for how the net effective heating scales with the upstream plasma condit…
This work presents a magnetic reconnection experiment in which the kinetic, magnetic and thermal properties of the plasma each play an important role in the overall energy balance and structure of the generated reconnection layer. Magnetic reconnection occurs during the interaction of continuous and steady flows of super-Alfvenic, magnetized, aluminum plasma, which collide in a geometry with two-dimensional symmetry, producing a stable and long-lasting reconnection layer. Optical Thomson scattering measurements show that when the layer forms, ions inside the layer are more strongly heated than…
Twisted magnetic flux ropes are ubiquitous in space and laboratory plasmas, and the merging of such flux ropes through magnetic reconnection is an important mechanism for restructuring magnetic fields and releasing free magnetic energy. The merging-compression scenario is one possible start up scheme for spherical tokamaks, which has been used on the Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak MAST. Two current-carrying plasma rings, or flux ropes, approach each other through the mutual attraction of their like currents, and merge, through magnetic reconnection, into a single plasma torus, with substantial pla…
The onset of the acceleration of ions during magnetic reconnection is explored via particle-in-cell simulations in the limit of a strong ambient guide field that self-consistently and simultaneously follow the motions of protons and $α$ particles. Heating parallel to the local magnetic field during reconnection with a guide field is strongly reduced compared with the reconnection of anti-parallel magnetic fields. The dominant heating of thermal ions during guide field reconnection results from pickup behavior of ions during their entry into reconnection exhausts and dominantly produces heating…
Modelling of impurity heating during reconnections in a Reverse Field Pinch device as due to parallel electric field acceleration and chaos-induced thermalization
Magnetic reconnection in strongly magnetized (low-beta), weakly collisional plasmas is investigated using a novel fluid-kinetic model [Zocco & Schekochihin, Phys. Plasmas 18, 102309 (2011)] which retains non-isothermal electron kinetics. It is shown that electron heating via Landau damping (linear phase mixing) is the dominant dissipation mechanism. In time, electron heating occurs after the peak of the reconnection rate; in space, it is concentrated along the separatrices of the magnetic island. For sufficiently large systems, the peak reconnection rate is $cE_{max}\approx 0.2v_AB_{y,0}$, whe…
We discuss electron acceleration and heating during collisionless magnetic reconnection by using the results of implicit kinetic simulations of Harris current sheets. We consider and compare electron dynamics in plasmas with different βvalues and perform simulations up to the physical mass ratio. We analyze the typical trajectory of electrons passing through the reconnection region, we study the electron velocity, focusing on the out-of-plane velocity, and we discuss the electron heating along the in-plane and out-of-plane directions.
Electron heating and mixing during asymmetric reconnection are studied with a 3D kinetic simulation that matches plasma parameters from Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) spacecraft observations of a magnetopause diffusion region. The mixing and heating are strongly enhanced across the magnetospheric separatrix compared to a 2D simulation. The transport of particles across the separatrix in 3D is attributed to lower-hybrid drift turbulence excited at the steep density gradient near the magnetopause. In the 3D simulation (and not the 2D simulation), the electron temperature parallel to the magneti…
We present a detailed study of magnetic reconnection in a quasi-two-dimensional pulsed-power driven laboratory experiment. Oppositely directed magnetic fields $(B=3$ T), advected by supersonic, sub-Alfvénic carbon plasma flows $(V_{in}=50$ km/s), are brought together and mutually annihilate inside a thin current layer ($δ=0.6$ mm). Temporally and spatially resolved optical diagnostics, including interferometry, Faraday rotation imaging and Thomson scattering, allow us to determine the structure and dynamics of this layer, the nature of the inflows and outflows and the detailed energy partition…
We report electrostatic Debye-scale turbulence developing within the diffusion region of asymmetric magnetopause reconnection with moderate guide field using observations by the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission. We show that Buneman waves and beam modes cause efficient and fast thermalization of the reconnection electron jet by irreversible phase mixing, during which the jet kinetic energy is transferred into thermal energy. Our results show that the reconnection diffusion region in the presence of a moderate guide field is highly turbulent, and that electrostatic turbulence plays an im…
Perpendicular ion heating in turbulence and reconnection: magnetic moment breaking by coherent fluctuations
University of California, Berkeley（加州大学伯克利分校）；Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona（亚利桑那大学）；Space Science Center and Department of Physics, University of New Hampshire（新罕布什尔大学）；Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley（加州大学伯克利分校）
We perform a high-resolution two-dimensional fully-kinetic numerical simulation of a turbulent plasma system with observation-driven conditions, in order to investigate the interplay between turbulence, magnetic reconnection, and particle heating from ion to sub-electron scales in the near-Sun solar wind. We find that the power spectra of the turbulent plasma and electromagnetic fluctuations show multiple power-law intervals down to scales smaller than the electron gyroradius. Magnetic reconnection is observed to occur in correspondence of current sheets with a thickness of the order of the el…
Direct Measurement of Electron Heating in Electron-Only Reconnection in a Laboratory Mini-Magnetosphere
University of California–Los Angeles（加州大学洛杉矶分校）；GoLP/Instituto de Plasmas e Fusão Nuclear, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa（里斯本大学高等技术学院等离子体与核聚变研究所/GOLP）；Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory（劳伦斯利弗莫尔国家实验室）
Using particle-in-cell simulations and kinetic theory, we explore the current-driven turbulence and associated electron heating in the dissipation region during 3D magnetic reconnection with a guide field. At late time the turbulence is dominated by the Buneman and lower hybrid instabilities. Both produce electron holes that co-exist but have very different propagation speeds. The associated scattering of electrons by the holes enhances electron heating in the dissipation region.
I propose a new paradigm for solar coronal heating viewed as a self-regulating process keeping the plasma marginally collisionless. The mechanism is based on the coupling between two effects. First, coronal density controls the plasma collisionality and hence the transition between the slow collisional Sweet-Parker and the fast collisionless reconnection regimes. In turn, coronal energy release leads to chromospheric evaporation, increasing the density and thus inhibiting subsequent reconnection of the newly-reconnected loops. As a result, statistically, the density fluctuates around some crit…
Hinode observations have revealed intermittent recurrent plasma ejections/jets in the chromosphere. These are interpreted as a result of non-perfectly anti-parallel magnetic reconnection, i.e. component reconnection, between a twisted magnetic flux tube and the pre-existing coronal/chromospheric magnetic field, though the fundamental physics of component reconnection is unrevealed. In this paper, we experimentally reproduced the magnetic configuration and investigated the dynamics of plasma ejections, heating and wave generation triggered by component reconnection in the chromosphere. We set p…
Hot collisionless accretion flows, such as the one in Sgr A$^{*}$ at our Galactic center, provide a unique setting for the investigation of magnetic reconnection. Here, protons are non-relativistic while electrons can be ultra-relativistic. By means of two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations, we investigate electron and proton heating in the outflows of trans-relativistic reconnection (i.e., $σ_w\sim 0.1-1$, where the magnetization $σ_w$ is the ratio of magnetic energy density to enthalpy density). For both electrons and protons, we find that heating at high $β_{\rm i}$ (here, $β_{\rm i}$…
There is currently no explanation of why the corona has the temperature and density it has. We present a model which explains how the dynamics of magnetic reconnection regulates the conditions in the corona. A bifurcation in magnetic reconnection at a critical state enforces an upper bound on the coronal temperature for a given density. We present observational evidence from 107 flares in 37 sun-like stars that stellar coronae are near this critical state. The model may be important to self-organized criticality models of the solar corona.
We study the nature of pressure-strain interaction at reconnection sites, detected by NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) Mission. We employ data from a series of published case studies, including a large-scale reconnection event at the magnetopause, three small-scale reconnection events at the magnetosheath current sheets, and one example of the recently discovered electron-only reconnection. In all instances, we find that the pressure-strain shows signature of conversion into (or from) internal energy at the reconnection site. The electron heating rate is larger than the ion heating rate …
Electron bulk heating during magnetic reconnection with symmetric inflow conditions is examined using kinetic particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations. The degree of electron heating is well correlated with the inflowing Alfvén speed $c_{Ar}$ based on the reconnecting magnetic field through the relation $ΔT_e = 0.033 \,m_i\,c_{Ar}^2$, where $ΔT_{e}$ is the increase in electron temperature. For the range of simulations performed, the heating shows almost no correlation with inflow total temperature $T_{tot} = T_i + T_e$ or plasma $β$. An out-of-plane (guide) magnetic field of similar magnitude to the…
MHD turbulence has long been proposed as a mechanism for the heating of coronal loops in the framework of the Parker scenario for coronal heating. So far most of the studies have focused on its dynamical properties without considering its thermodynamical and radiative features, because of the very demanding computational requirements. In this paper we extend this previous research to the compressible regime, including an energy equation, by using HYPERION, a new parallelized, viscoresistive, three-dimensional compressible MHD code. HYPERION employs a Fourier collocation -- finite difference sp…
I propose that solar coronal heating is a self-regulating process that keeps the coronal plasma roughly marginally collisionless. The self-regulating mechanism is based on the interplay of two effects. First, plasma density controls coronal energy release via the transition between the slow collisional Sweet-Parker regime and the fast collisionless reconnection regime. This transition takes place when the Sweet--Parker layer becomes thinner than the characteristic collisionless reconnection scale. I present a simple criterion for this transition in terms of the upstream plasma density (n_e), t…
The heating of electrons in collisionless magnetic reconnection is explored in particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations with non-zero guide fields so that electrons remain magnetized. In this regime electric fields parallel to B accelerate particles directly while those perpendicular to B do so through gradient-B and curvature drifts. The curvature drift drives parallel heating through Fermi reflection while the gradient B drift changes the perpendicular energy through betatron acceleration. We present simulations in which we evaluate each of these mechanisms in space and time in order to quantify t…
The plasma heating during collisionless magnetic reconnection is investigated using particle-in-cell simulations. We analyze the time evolution of the plasma temperature associated with the motion of the reconnecting flux tube, where the plasma temperature is defined as second-order moment of velocity distribution function in the simulation frame/in the center of the flux tube frame, and we show that the plasma heating during magnetic reconnection can be separated into two distinct stages: the nonadiabatic heating stage, in which the magnetic field lines are just reconnecting in the X-type dif…
Magnetic reconnection has been intensively studied in fully ionized plasmas. However, plasmas are often partially ionized in astrophysical environments. The interactions between the neutral particles and ionized plasmas might strongly affect the reconnection mechanisms. We review magnetic reconnection in partially ionized plasmas in different environments from theoretical, numerical, observational and experimental points of view. We focus on mechanisms which make magnetic reconnection fast enough to compare with observations, especially on the reconnection events in the low solar atmosphere. T…
The evolution of the photospheric magnetic field plays a key role in the energy transport into the chromosphere and the corona. In active regions, newly emerging magnetic flux interacts with the pre-existent magnetic field, which can lead to reconnection events that convert magnetic energy to thermal energy. We aim to study the heating caused by a strong reconnection event that was triggered by magnetic flux cancellation. We use imaging-spectropolarimetric data in the Fe I 6301A, Fe I 6302A, Ca II 8542A and Ca II K obtained with the CRISP and CHROMIS instruments at the Swedish 1-m Solar Telesc…
Kinetic Riemann simulations have been completed to explore particle heating during guide field reconnection in the low-$β$ environment of the inner heliosphere and the solar corona. The reconnection exhaust is bounded by two rotational discontinuities (RD) and two slow shocks (SS) form within the exhaust as in magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) models. At the RDs, ions are accelerated by the magnetic field tension to drive the reconnection outflow as well as flows in the out-of-plane direction. The out-of-plane flows stream toward the midplane and meet to drive the SSs. The SSs differ greatly from thos…
We numerically study magnetic reconnection on different spatial scales and at different heights in the weakly ionized plasma of the low solar atmosphere (around $300-800$~km above the solar surface) within a reactive 2.5 D multi-fluid plasma-neutral model. We consider a strongly magnetized plasma ($β\sim 6\% $) evolving from a force-free magnetic configuration and perturbed to initialize formation of a reconnection current sheet. On large scales, the resulting current sheets are observed to undergo a secondary 'plasmoid' instability. A series of simulations at different scales demonstrate a ca…
Where particle acceleration and plasma heating take place in relation to magnetic reconnection is a fundamental question for solar flares. We report analysis of an M7.7 flare on 2012 July 19 observed by SDO/AIA and RHESSI. Bi-directional outflows in forms of plasmoid ejections and contracting cusp-shaped loops originate between an erupting flux rope and underlying flare loops at speeds of typically 200-300 km/s up to 1050 km/s. These outflows are associated with spatially separated double coronal X-ray sources with centroid separation decreasing with energy. The highest temperature is located …
Using observations of Earth's bow shock by the Magnetospheric Multiscale mission, we show for the first time that active magnetic reconnection is occurring at current sheets embedded within the quasi-parallel shock's transition layer. We observe an electron jet and heating but no ion response, suggesting we have observed an electron-only mode. The lack of ion response is consistent with simulations showing reconnection onset on sub-ion timescales. We also discuss the impact of electron heating in shocks via reconnection.
The plasma in low-luminosity accretion flows, such as the one around the black hole at the center of M87 or Sgr A* at our Galactic Center, is expected to be collisioness and two-temperature, with protons hotter than electrons. Here, particle heating is expected to be controlled by magnetic reconnection in the transrelativistic regime $σ_{w}\sim 0.1$-$1$, where the magnetization $σ_{w}$ is the ratio of magnetic energy density to plasma enthalpy density. By means of large-scale 2D particle-in-cell simulations, we explore for a fiducial $σ_w=0.1$ how the dissipated magnetic energy gets partitione…
The acceleration of solar flare ions during magnetic reconnection is explored via particle-in-cell simulations that self-consistently follow the motions of both protons and $α$ particles. We demonstrate that the dominant ion heating during reconnection with a guide field (a magnetic component perpendicular to the reconnection plane) results from pickup behavior during the entry into reconnection exhausts. In contrast with anti-parallel reconnection, the temperature increment is dominantly transverse, rather than parallel, to the local magnetic field. The comparison of protons and alphas reveal…
Magnetic reconnection, a fundamentally important process in many aspects of astrophysics, is believed to be initiated by the tearing instability of an electric current sheet, a region where magnetic field abruptly changes direction and electric currents build up. Recent studies have suggested that the amount of magnetic shear in these structures is a critical parameter for the switch-on nature of magnetic reconnection in the solar atmosphere, at fluid spatial scales much larger than kinetic scales. We present results of simulations of reconnection in 3D current sheets with conditions appropria…
The SWICS instrument aboard the ACE satellite has detected frequent intervals in the slow solar wind and interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs) in which C6+ and other fully stripped ions are strongly depleted, though the ionization states of elements such as Si and Fe indicate that those ions should be present. It has been suggested that these outlier or dropout events can be explained by the resonant cyclotron heating process, because these ions all have the same cyclotron frequency as He2+. We investigate the region in the corona where these outlier events form. It must be above the i…
A minimal model for magnetic reconnection and, generally, low-frequency dynamics in low-beta plasmas is proposed. The model combines analytical and computational simplicity with physical realizability: it is a rigorous limit of gyrokinetics for plasma beta of order the electron-ion mass ratio. The model contains collisions and can be used both in the collisional and collisionless reconnection regimes. It includes gyrokinetic ions (not assumed cold) and allows for the topological rearrangement of the magnetic field lines by either resistivity or electron inertia, whichever predominates. The two…
Turbulent flows in the solar wind, large scale current sheets, multiple current sheets, and shock waves lead to the formation of environments in which a dense network of current sheets is established and sustains "turbulent reconnection". We constructed a 2D grid on which a number of randomly chosen grid points are acting as scatterers (i.e. magnetic clouds or current sheets). Our goal is to examine how test particles respond inside this large scale collection of scatterers. We study the energy gain of individual particles, the evolution of their energy distribution and their escape time distr…
In the interaction of high-power laser beams with solid density plasma there are a number of mechanisms that generate strong magnetic fields. Such fields subsequently inhibit or redirect electron flows, but can themselves be advected by heat fluxes, resulting in complex interplay between thermal transport and magnetic fields.We show that for heating by multiple laser spots reconnection of magnetic field lines can occur, mediated by these heat fluxes, using a fully implicit 2D Vlasov-Fokker-Planck code. Under such conditions, the reconnection rate is dictated by heat flows rather than Alfvènic …
Electron ring velocity space distributions have previously been seen in numerical simulations of magnetic reconnection exhausts and have been suggested to be caused by the magnetization of the electron outflow jet by the compressed reconnected magnetic fields [Shuster et al., ${\it Geophys.~Res.~Lett.}, {\bf 41}$, 5389 (2014)]. We present a theory of the dependence of the major and minor radii of the ring distributions solely in terms of upstream (lobe) plasma conditions, thereby allowing a prediction of the associated temperature and temperature anisotropy of the rings in terms of upstream pa…
We present the first three-dimensional hybrid simulations of the evolution of ion-scale current sheets, with an investigation of the role of temperature anisotropy and associated kinetic instabilities on the growth of the tearing instability and particle heating. We confirm the ability of the ion cyclotron and firehose instabilities to enhance or suppress reconnection, respectively. The simulations demonstrate the emergence of persistent three-dimensional structures, including patchy reconnection sites and the fast growth of a narrow-band drift-kink instability, which suppresses reconnection f…
One of the greatest challenges in solar physics is understanding the heating of the Sun's corona. Most theories for coronal heating postulate that free energy in the form of magnetic twist/stress is injected by the photosphere into the corona where the free energy is converted into heat either through reconnection or wave dissipation. The magnetic helicity associated with the twist/stress, however, is expected to be conserved and appear in the corona. In previous work we showed that helicity associated with the small-scale twists undergoes an inverse cascade via stochastic reconnection in the …
Magnetic reconnection plays an important role in the release of magnetic energy and consequent energization of particles in collisionless plasmas. Energy transfer in collisionless magnetic reconnection is inherently a two-step process: reversible, collisionless energization of particles by the electric field, followed by collisional thermalization of that energy, leading to irreversible plasma heating. Gyrokinetic numerical simulations are used to explore the first step of electron energization, and we generate the first examples of field-particle correlation (FPC) signatures of electron energ…
Yunnan Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院云南天文台）；University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学）；Yunnan Key Laboratory of Solar Physics and Space Science（云南太阳能物理与空间科学重点实验室）
UV bursts and Ellerman bombs are transient brightenings observed in the low solar atmospheres of emerging flux regions. Observations have discovered the cospatial and cotemporal EBs and UV bursts, and their formation mechanisms are still not clear. The multi-thermal components with a large temperature span in these events challenge our understanding of magnetic reconnection and heating mechanisms in the low solar atmosphere. We have studied magnetic reconnection between the emerging and background magnetic fields. The initial plasma parameters are based on the C7 atmosphere model. After the cu…
Electron heating/acceleration in the foreshock, by which electrons may be energized beyond thermal energies prior to encountering the bow shock, is very important for the bow shock dynamics. And then these electrons would be more easily injected into a process like diffusive shock acceleration. Many mechanisms have been proposed to explain electrons heating/acceleration in the foreshock. Magnetic reconnection is one possible candidate. Taking advantage of the Magnetospheric Multiscale mission, we present two magnetic reconnection events in the dawn-side and dusk-side ion foreshock region, resp…
We attempt to model magnetic reconnection during the two-ribbon flare in the gravitationally stratified solar atmosphere with the Lundquist number of $S=10^6$ using 2D simulations. We found that the tearing mode instability leads to the inhomogeneous turbulence inside the reconnecting current sheet (CS) and invokes the fast phase of reconnection. Fast reconnection brings an extra dissipation of magnetic field which enhances the reconnection rate in an apparent way. The energy spectrum in the CS shows the power-law pattern and the dynamics of plasmoids governs the associated spectral index. We …
