Laboratory Observation of Localized Onset of Magnetic Reconnection
Name
Katz-2010-Laboratory Observati.pdf
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Author(s)
Katz, Noam Karasov
Egedal-Pedersen, Jan
Fox, William R.
Le, Ari Yitzchak
Bonde, Jeffrey D.
Vrublevskis, Arturs
Date Issued
June 2010
Journal
Physical Review Letters
Publisher
American Physical Society
Citation
Katz, Noam, et al. "Laboratory Observation of Localized Onset of Magnetic Reconnection." Physical Review Letters 104.25 (2010): 255004. © 2010 The American Physical Society
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Magnetic reconnection is a fundamental process in plasmas that results in the often explosive release of stored magnetic energy, but the trigger for its onset is not well understood. We explore this trigger for fast reconnection in toroidal experiments using a magnetic x-type geometry in the strong guide-field regime. We find that the onset occurs asymmetrically: the reconnection begins on one side of the torus and propagates around approximately at the Alfvén speed. The fast reconnection occurs only in the presence of a global plasma mode, which breaks the axisymmetry and enables the current at the x line to decrease sharply. A simple semiempirical model is used to describe the onset’s growth rate.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Plasma Science and Fusion Center
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.104.255004
