Engineering-Physics Space Plasma Seminar

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"Exploring Magnetic Reconnection Process at Different Length Scales: Observations, simulations, and theory"

Abstract: Recent discovery of electron-only reconnection has prompted numerous studies of the small-scale reconnection phenomenon in various regions of the Earth’s magnetosphere. However, the origin and the criteria that governs the physics of electron-only reconnection is still not well understood. I present an overview of recent numerical, observational, and theoretical findings on the electron-only magnetic reconnection process in 2D and 3D settings. In 3D, we find that the finite length X-line configuration further enhances the reconnection rate due the magnetic tension force activated in the out-of-plane direction of the usual reconnection plane. A brief discussion of recent observations of large-scale reconnection in PSP and preliminary comparative simulation analysis will be presented as well.

About the Speaker(s)

Prayash Sharma Pyakurel
UC Berkeley

Contact

For more information, contact Tressena Manning at tressena.a.manning@dartmouth.edu or +1 (603) 646-2854.