Magnetic Reconnection in Plasmas

Session

Afternoon II

24

11 Aug 2015, 15:45

132:028 (Nordita, Stockholm)

Conveners

Afternoon II

• Slavik Olshevsky (KU Leuven)

339. Magnetic Reconnection in the Magnetotail: Onset Mechanisms and Structure of Exhaust Jets in 3D

Dr Philip Pritchett (University of California, Los Angeles)

11/08/2015, 15:45

Workshop, August 10-14

Oral

Magnetic reconnection is widely accepted as the driver of dynamics in the Earth’s magnetotail despite the difficulty in understanding how reconnection can be initiated in a current sheet with curved magnetic field lines associated with a small normal B_z component. In particular, reconnection is the favored mechanism for explaining the generation of bursty bulk flows and...

327. Conversion of electromagnetic energy at plasma jet fronts

Dr Yuri Khotyaintsev (Swedish Institute of Space Physics)

11/08/2015, 16:10

Workshop, August 10-14

Oral

We use multi-spacecraft observations by Cluster and MMS in the magnetotail and 3D PIC simulations to investigate conversion of electromagnetic energy at the front of a fast plasma jet. Such plasma jet can be produced as a result of magnetic reconnection. Jet fronts are known to have a sharp increase of magnetic field (referred to as dipolarization fronts in the magnetospheric...

340. Three-dimensional kinetic picture of magnetic reconnection, buoyancy and flapping in the magnetotail

Dr Mikhail Sitnov (JHU/APL)

11/08/2015, 16:25

Workshop, August 10-14

Invited

Magnetic reconnection in the Earth’s magnetotail has important features that distinguish it from similar processes in other space plasma regions, laboratory plasmas and in the simplest theoretical models. First, the very possibility of spontaneous reconnection has been questioned because of the stabilizing effect of electrons magnetized by the north-south (Bz) magnetic field...