TY - JOUR
T1 - Magnetic reconnection driven by electron dynamics
AU - Kuramitsu, Y.
AU - Moritaka, T.
AU - Sakawa, Y.
AU - Morita, T.
AU - Sano, T.
AU - Koenig, M.
AU - Gregory, C. D.
AU - Woolsey, N.
AU - Tomita, K.
AU - Takabe, H.
AU - Liu, Y. L.
AU - Chen, S. H.
AU - Matsukiyo, S.
AU - Hoshino, M.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank S. Imada, K. Kusano, and the technical support by the staff at the ILE. This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan under Grant No. MOST-103 -2112 -M-008-001-MY2, MOST 104-2911-I-008-504, and MOST 105-2112-M-008 -003 -MY3; JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 24740369 and 21340172; a grant for the Core-to-Core Program from JSPS; and the Asian Core Program for High energy density science Using intense Laser photons commissioned by JSPS.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018, The Author(s).
PY - 2018/12/1
Y1 - 2018/12/1
N2 - Magnetic reconnections play essential roles in space, astrophysical, and laboratory plasmas, where the anti-parallel magnetic field components re-connect and the magnetic energy is converted to the plasma energy as Alfvénic out flows. Although the electron dynamics is considered to be essential, it is highly challenging to observe electron scale reconnections. Here we show the experimental results on an electron scale reconnection driven by the electron dynamics in laser-produced plasmas. We apply a weak-external magnetic field in the direction perpendicular to the plasma propagation, where the magnetic field is directly coupled with only the electrons but not for the ions. Since the kinetic pressure of plasma is much larger than the magnetic pressure, the magnetic field is distorted and locally anti-parallel. We observe plasma collimations, cusp and plasmoid like features with optical diagnostics. The plasmoid propagates at the electron Alfvén velocity, indicating a reconnection driven by the electron dynamics.
AB - Magnetic reconnections play essential roles in space, astrophysical, and laboratory plasmas, where the anti-parallel magnetic field components re-connect and the magnetic energy is converted to the plasma energy as Alfvénic out flows. Although the electron dynamics is considered to be essential, it is highly challenging to observe electron scale reconnections. Here we show the experimental results on an electron scale reconnection driven by the electron dynamics in laser-produced plasmas. We apply a weak-external magnetic field in the direction perpendicular to the plasma propagation, where the magnetic field is directly coupled with only the electrons but not for the ions. Since the kinetic pressure of plasma is much larger than the magnetic pressure, the magnetic field is distorted and locally anti-parallel. We observe plasma collimations, cusp and plasmoid like features with optical diagnostics. The plasmoid propagates at the electron Alfvén velocity, indicating a reconnection driven by the electron dynamics.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41467-018-07415-3
DO - 10.1038/s41467-018-07415-3
M3 - Article
C2 - 30504814
AN - SCOPUS:85057778057
VL - 9
JO - Nature Communications
JF - Nature Communications
SN - 2041-1723
IS - 1
M1 - 5109
ER -