Intermittent energy dissipation by turbulent reconnection
Citations Over TimeTop 1% of 2016 papers
Abstract
Abstract Magnetic reconnection—the process responsible for many explosive phenomena in both nature and laboratory—is efficient at dissipating magnetic energy into particle energy. To date, exactly how this dissipation happens remains unclear, owing to the scarcity of multipoint measurements of the “diffusion region” at the sub‐ion scale. Here we report such a measurement by Cluster—four spacecraft with separation of 1/5 ion scale. We discover numerous current filaments and magnetic nulls inside the diffusion region of magnetic reconnection, with the strongest currents appearing at spiral nulls (O‐lines) and the separatrices. Inside each current filament, kinetic‐scale turbulence is significantly increased and the energy dissipation, E′ ⋅ j, is 100 times larger than the typical value. At the jet reversal point, where radial nulls (X‐lines) are detected, the current, turbulence, and energy dissipations are surprisingly small. All these features clearly demonstrate that energy dissipation in magnetic reconnection occurs at O‐lines but not X‐lines.
Related Papers
- → Turbulence and Particle Acceleration in Collisionless Magnetic Reconnection: Effects of Temperature Inhomogeneity across Pre-reconnection Current Sheet(2019)48 cited
- → Magnetic reconnection in a charged, electron-dominant current sheet(2020)15 cited
- → Spontaneous Onset of Collisionless Magnetic Reconnection on an Electron Scale(2020)17 cited
- → MAGNETOHYDRODYNAMICS STUDY OF THREE-DIMENSIONAL FAST MAGNETIC RECONNECTION FOR INTERMITTENT SNAKE-LIKE DOWNFLOWS IN SOLAR FLARES(2009)20 cited
- → Spontaneous three-dimensional magnetic reconnection in merging toroidal plasma experiment(2013)2 cited