Exploring the Statistics of Magnetic Reconnection X-points in Kinetic Particle-in-Cell (PIC) Turbulence
arXiv:1706.04905 · doi:10.1063/1.5001722
Abstract
Magnetic reconnection is a ubiquitous phenomenon in turbulent plasmas. It is an important part of the turbulent dynamics and heating of space and astrophysical plasmas. We examine the statistics of magnetic reconnection using a quantitative local analysis of the magnetic vector potential, previously used in magnetohydrodynamics simulations, and now generalized to fully kinetic PIC simulations. Different ways of reducing the particle noise for analysis purposes including multiple smoothing techniques are explored. We find that a Fourier filter applied at the Debye scale is an optimal choice for analyzing PIC data. Finlay, we find a broader distribution of normalized reconnection rates compared to the MHD limit with rates as large as 0.5 but with an average of approximately 0.1.
References in corpus (13)
- Reconnection in a Weakly Stochastic Field
- Instability of current sheets and formation of plasmoid chains
- The Energy Dissipation Rate of Supersonic, Magnetohydrodynamic Turbulence in Molecular Clouds
- Self-Feeding Turbulent Magnetic Reconnection on Macroscopic Scales
- Energy transfer, pressure tensor and heating of kinetic plasma
- Quantifying Gyrotropy in Magnetic Reconnection
- Three-Dimensional Structure of Solar Wind Turbulence
- Kinetic dissipation and anisotropic heating in a turbulent collisionless plasma
- Localness of energy cascade in hydrodynamic turbulence, II. Sharp spectral filter
- The Complex Structure of Magnetic Field Discontinuities in the Turbulent Solar Wind
- Turbulence and cooling in galaxy cluster cores
- Solar wind turbulence from MHD to sub-ion scales: high-resolution hybrid simulations
- The Inherently Three-Dimensional Nature of Magnetized Plasma Turbulence
Cited by in corpus (29)
- The interplay of magnetically-dominated turbulence and magnetic reconnection in producing nonthermal particles
- Transition from ion-coupled to electron-only reconnection: Basic physics and implications for plasma turbulence
- Can Hall Magnetohydrodynamics explain plasma turbulence at sub-ion scales?
- Pressure-Strain Interaction as the Energy Dissipation Estimate in Collisionless Plasma
- Particle Injection and Nonthermal Particle Acceleration in Relativistic Magnetic Reconnection
- Electron-only reconnection in kinetic Alfvén turbulence
- Local energy transfer rate and kinetic processes: the fate of turbulent energy in two-dimensional Hybrid Vlasov-Maxwell numerical simulations
- Energy Dissipation in Turbulent Reconnection
- Energy conversion in turbulent weakly-collisional plasmas: Eulerian Hybrid Vlasov-Maxwell simulations
- Turbulent electromagnetic fields at sub-proton scales: two-fluid and full-kinetic plasma simulations
- Reconnection from a Turbulence Perspective
- The Mechanism of Electron Injection and Acceleration in Trans-Relativistic Reconnection
- On the Identification of Coherent Structures in Space Plasmas: the Magnetic Helicity-PVI Method
- Magnetic reconnection as an energy cascade process
- ViDA: a Vlasov-DArwin solver for plasma physics at electron scales
- Identification of active magnetic reconnection using magnetic flux transport in plasma turbulence
- Relativistic Asymmetric Reconnection
- First-Principles Theory of the Relativistic Magnetic Reconnection Rate in Astrophysical Pair Plasmas
- Multidimensional Iterative Filtering: a new approach for investigating plasma turbulence in numerical simulations
- Noise-Induced Magnetic Field Saturation in Kinetic Simulations
- Extended magnetic reconnection in kinetic plasma turbulence
- Higher-order nonequilibrium term: Effective power density quantifying evolution towards or away from local thermodynamic equilibrium
- Electron inertia effects in 3D hybrid-kinetic collisionless plasma turbulence
- Electron-Scale Current Sheets and Energy Dissipation in 3D Kinetic-Scale Plasma Turbulence with Low Electron Beta
- Wave emission of non-thermal electron beams generated by magnetic reconnection
- Local extraction of three-dimensional magnetic reconnection X-lines
- Triggering tearing in a forming current sheet with the mirror instability
- Anisotropic electron heating in turbulence-driven magnetic reconnection in the near-Sun solar wind
- Current sheets, plasmoids and flux ropes in the heliosphere. Part II: Theoretical aspects