TY - JOUR
T1 - Effects of global boundary and local collisionality on magnetic reconnection in a laboratory plasma
AU - Kuritsyn, A.
AU - Ji, H.
AU - Gerhardt, S. P.
AU - Ren, Y.
AU - Yamada, M.
PY - 2007/8/28
Y1 - 2007/8/28
N2 - The magnetic reconnection process is studied in a wide range of operating conditions in the well-controlled Magnetic Reconnection Experiment. The reconnection rate is observed to be a function of both global (system size) and local (collisionality) plasma parameters. When only local collisionality is lowered, the current sheet is shortened while effective resistivity is enhanced, both accelerating reconnection rates. At a fixed collisionality, the current sheet length increases with system size, resulting in the reduction of the reconnection rate. These results quantitatively agree with a generalized Sweet-Parker analysis.
AB - The magnetic reconnection process is studied in a wide range of operating conditions in the well-controlled Magnetic Reconnection Experiment. The reconnection rate is observed to be a function of both global (system size) and local (collisionality) plasma parameters. When only local collisionality is lowered, the current sheet is shortened while effective resistivity is enhanced, both accelerating reconnection rates. At a fixed collisionality, the current sheet length increases with system size, resulting in the reduction of the reconnection rate. These results quantitatively agree with a generalized Sweet-Parker analysis.
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U2 - 10.1029/2007GL030796
DO - 10.1029/2007GL030796
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:35948937584
VL - 34
JO - Geophysical Research Letters
JF - Geophysical Research Letters
SN - 0094-8276
IS - 16
M1 - L16106
ER -