Kinetic Scale Magnetic Reconnection with a Turbulent Forcing: Particle-in-cell Simulations
Date
2023-01-31
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
The Astrophysical Journal
Abstract
Turbulent magnetic reconnection has been observed by spacecraft to occur commonly in terrestrial magnetosphere and the solar wind, providing a new scenario of kinetic scale magnetic reconnection. Here by imposing a turbulent forcing on ions in particle-in-cell simulations, we simulate kinetic scale turbulent magnetic reconnection. We find formation of fluctuated electric and magnetic fields and filamentary currents in the diffusion region. Reconnection rate does not change much compared to that in laminar Hall reconnection. At the X-line, the electric and magnetic fields both exhibit a double power-law spectrum with a spectral break near local lower-hybrid frequency. The energy conversion rate is high in turbulent reconnection, leading to significant electron acceleration at the X-line. The accelerated electrons form a power-law spectrum in the high energy range, with a power-law index of about 3.7, much harder than one can obtain in laminar reconnection.
Description
This article was originally published in The Astrophysical Journal. The version of record is available at: https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/acaf7a. © 2023. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society. Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.
Keywords
Citation
Lu, San, Quanming Lu, Rongsheng Wang, Xinmin Li, Xinliang Gao, Kai Huang, Haomin Sun, et al. “Kinetic Scale Magnetic Reconnection with a Turbulent Forcing: Particle-in-Cell Simulations.” The Astrophysical Journal 943, no. 2 (February 1, 2023): 100. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/acaf7a.