Journal article
Exploring the statistics of magnetic reconnection X-points in kinetic particle-in-cell turbulence
Physics of plasmas, Vol.24(10), 102308
10/01/2017
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 employed to fully kinetic particle-in-cell (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. Finally, 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. Published by AIP Publishing.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Exploring the statistics of magnetic reconnection X-points in kinetic particle-in-cell turbulence
- Creators
- C. C. Haggerty - University of DelawareT. N. Parashar - University of DelawareW. H. Matthaeus - University of DelawareM. A. Shay - University of DelawareY. Yang - University of DelawareM. Wan - Southern University of Science and TechnologyP. Wu - Queen's University BelfastS. Servidio - University of CalabriaLawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC)
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Physics of plasmas, Vol.24(10), 102308
- DOI
- 10.1063/1.5001722
- ISSN
- 1070-664X
- eISSN
- 1089-7674
- Publisher
- AIP Publishing
- Number of pages
- 10
- Grant note
- NNX14AC39G / MMS mission D99031L / Solar Probe Plus science team (IOSIS/Princeton) NNX15AW58G; NNX14AI63G; NNX08A083GMMS / NASA; National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA) AGS-1460130 / NSF; National Science Foundation (NSF)
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 10/01/2017
- Academic Unit
- Physics and Astronomy
- Record Identifier
- 9985224319802771
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