Fast cross‐scale energy transfer during turbulent magnetic reconnection
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Magnetic reconnection is a key fundamental process in collisionless plasmas that explosively converts magnetic energy to plasma kinetic and thermal energies through a change of magnetic field topology in a central electron-scale region called the electron diffusion region (EDR). Past simulations and observations demonstrated that this process causes efficient energy conversion through the formation of multiple macro-scale or micro-scale magnetic islands/flux ropes. However, the coupling of these phenomena on different spatiotemporal scales is still poorly understood. Here, based on a new large-scale fully-kinetic simulation with a realistic, initially-fluctuating magnetic field, we demonstrate that macro-scale evolution of turbulent reconnection involving merging of macro-scale islands induces repeated, quick formation of new electron-scale islands within the EDR which soon grow to larger scales. This process causes an efficient cross-scale energy transfer from electron- to larger-scales, and leads to strong electron energization within the growing islands.
Date Issued
2021-07-16
Date Acceptance
2021-06-09
Citation
Geophysical Research Letters, 2021, 48 (13), pp.1-8
ISSN
0094-8276
Publisher
American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Start Page
1
End Page
8
Journal / Book Title
Geophysical Research Letters
Volume
48
Issue
13
Copyright Statement
© 2021. The Authors.This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
License URL
Sponsor
The Royal Society
Identifier
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2021GL093524
Grant Number
URF\R1\201286
Subjects
Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2021-06-19