@article{1ab3ab91fa4844729e503027787e09d1,
title = "Electron-Only Reconnection in Plasma Turbulence",
abstract = "Hybrid-Vlasov–Maxwell simulations of magnetized plasma turbulence including non-linear electron-inertia effects in a generalized Ohm's law are presented. When fluctuation energy is injected on scales sufficiently close to ion-kinetic scales, the ions efficiently become de-magnetized and electron-scale current sheets largely dominate the distribution of the emerging current structures, in contrast to the usual picture, where a full hierarchy of structure sizes is generally observed. These current sheets are shown to be the sites of electron-only reconnection (e-rec), in which the usual electron exhausts are unaccompanied by ion outflows and which are in qualitative agreement with those recently observed by MMS in the Earth's turbulent magnetosheath, downstream of the bow shock. Some features of the e-rec phenomenology are shown to be consistent with an electron magnetohydrodynamic description. Simulations suggest that this regime of collisionless reconnection may be found in turbulent systems where plasma processes, such as micro-instabilities and/or shocks, overpower the more customary turbulent cascade by directly injecting energy close to the ion-kinetic scales.",
keywords = "Earth magnetosheath, magnetic fields, magnetic reconnection, plasma simulations, plasma turbulence, solar wind",
author = "Francesco Califano and Cerri, {Silvio Sergio} and Matteo Faganello and Dimitri Laveder and Manuela Sisti and Kunz, {Matthew W.}",
note = "Funding Information: This project has received funding from the European Union{\textquoteright}s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 776262 (AIDA, www.aida-space.eu) SC and MK were supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under Grant No. NNX16AK09G issued through the Heliophysics Supporting Research Program. Funding Information: We acknowledge PRACE for awarding us access to the supercomputer Marconi, CINECA, Italy, where the calculations were performed under the grant no. 2017174107. FC and Funding Information: We acknowledge PRACE for awarding us access to the supercomputer Marconi, CINECA, Italy, where the calculations were performed under the grant no. 2017174107. FC and SC thank Dr. C. Cavazzoni (CINECA, Italy) for his essential contribution to code parallelization and performance and Dr. M. Guarrasi (CINECA, Italy) for his contribution on code implementation on Marconi. This work was also granted access to the HPC resources of CINES/IDRIS under the allocations A0040407042 and A0060407042 made by GENCI. This paper originates from an unpublished arXiv letter at arXiv:1810.03957, but represents a significantly upgraded work. We acknowledge the Referee S. Markidis for his comments and discussion helping us to improve the content of the paper. Funding. This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 776262 (AIDA, www.aida-space.eu) SC and MK were supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under Grant No. NNX16AK09G issued through the Heliophysics Supporting Research Program. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} Copyright {\textcopyright} 2020 Califano, Cerri, Faganello, Laveder, Sisti and Kunz.",
year = "2020",
month = sep,
day = "4",
doi = "10.3389/fphy.2020.00317",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "8",
journal = "Frontiers in Physics",
issn = "2296-424X",
publisher = "Frontiers Media S. A.",
}