Effects of global boundary and local collisionality on magnetic reconnection in a laboratory plasma

A. Kuritsyn; H. Ji; S. P. Gerhardt; Y. Ren; M. Yamada

doi:10.1029/2007GL030796

Effects of global boundary and local collisionality on magnetic reconnection in a laboratory plasma

A. Kuritsyn, H. Ji, S. P. Gerhardt, Y. Ren, M. Yamada

Astrophysical Sciences

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

13 Scopus citations

Abstract

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.

Original language	English (US)
Article number	L16106
Journal	Geophysical Research Letters
Volume	34
Issue number	16
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1029/2007GL030796
State	Published - Aug 28 2007

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

Geophysics
Earth and Planetary Sciences(all)

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AU - Ren, Y.

AU - Yamada, M.

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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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