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Scaling of magnetic reconnection in relativistic collisionless pair plasmas
| Content Provider | NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) |
|---|---|
| Author | Daughton, William Hesse, Michael Liu, Yi-Hsin Li, Hui Guo, Fan |
| Copyright Year | 2015 |
| Description | Using fully kinetic simulations, we study the scaling of the inflow speed of collisionless magnetic reconnection in electron-positron plasmas from the non-relativistic to ultra-relativistic limit. In the anti-parallel configuration, the inflow speed increases with the upstream magnetization parameter sigma and approaches the speed of light when sigma is greater than O(100), leading to an enhanced reconnection rate. In all regimes, the divergence of the pressure tensor is the dominant term responsible for breaking the frozen-in condition at the x-line. The observed scaling agrees well with a simple model that accounts for the Lorentz contraction of the plasma passing through the diffusion region. The results demonstrate that the aspect ratio of the diffusion region, modified by the compression factor of proper density, remains approximately 0.1 in both the non-relativistic and relativistic limits. |
| File Size | 426452 |
| Page Count | 6 |
| File Format | |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://archive.org/details/NASA_NTRS_Archive_20150007927 |
| Archival Resource Key | ark:/13960/t13n75877 |
| Language | English |
| Publisher Date | 2015-03-03 |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Subject Keyword | Plasma Collisionless Magnetic Reconnection Magnetization Plasmas Physics Plasma Pressure Topology Aspect Ratio Electron-positron Plasmas Tensors Simulation Collisionless Plasmas Magnetic Field Reconnection Lorentz Contraction Diffusion Relativistic Plasmas Ntrs Nasa Technical Reports Server (ntrs) Nasa Technical Reports Server Aerodynamics Aircraft Aerospace Engineering Aerospace Aeronautic Space Science |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
