Electron-only reconnection in 3D kinetic-scale plasma turbulence in a low electron beta environment

POSTER

Abstract

Magnetic reconnection has long been considered as one of the fundamental mechanisms of plasma heating and particle acceleration in astrophysical and space plasmas. Recent observations by the MMS mission have hinted at the existence of reconnection events with no ion coupling [1]. In our previous numerical study of 2.5D kinetic scale turbulence, these electron-only reconnection events were seen to be produced naturally in the turbulent environment [2]. In this presentation, we discuss the results of our more recent 3D numerical simulation, run with spectral code SPS. We identify and characterize potential quasi-2D electron-only reconnection sites looking for signatures like electron outflows and particle heating.

[1] - Phan, T. D., Eastwood, J. P., Shay, M. A., et al. 2018, Nature, 557, 202.

[2] - Vega, C., Roytershteyn , V., Delzanno, G. L., Boldyrev, S., 2020 ApJL 893 L10.

*This research was supported by Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) through its Center for Space and Earth Science (CSES). CSES is funded by LANL's Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) program under project number 20210528CR. The work of CV and SB was partly supported by NSF Grant PHY-2010098, by NASA Grant 80NSSC18K0646, and by the Wisconsin Plasma Physics Laboratory (US Department of Energy Grant DE-SC0018266). VR was partially supported by NSF/DOE Partnership in Basic Plasma Science and Engineering through grant DE-SC0019315 and by NASA grant 80NSSC21K1692. Computational resources were provided by the Texas Advanced Computing Center at the University of Texas at Austin (XSEDE Allocations No. TG-PHY110016 and TG-ATM180015) and by the NASA High-End Computing (HEC) Program through the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division at Ames Research Center.

Presenters

  • Cristian S Vega

    • Univerdity of Wisconsin - Madison

Authors

  • Cristian S Vega

    • Univerdity of Wisconsin - Madison

  • Vadim S Roytershteyn

    • Space Science Institute

  • Gian Luca Delzanno

    • Los Alamos National Laboratory
    • Los Alamos National Lab

  • Stanislav A Boldyrev

    • University of Wisconsin - Madison