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Recent Evolution in the Theory of Magnetic Reconnection and Its Connection with Turbulence

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Abstract

The concept of reconnection is found in many fields of physics with the closest analogue to magnetic reconnection being the reconnection of vortex tubes in hydrodynamics. In plasmas, magnetic reconnection plays an important role in release of energy associated with the magnetic shear into particle energy. Although most studies to date have focused on 2D reconnection, the availability of 3D petascale kinetic simulations have brought the complexity of 3D reconnection to the forefront in collisionless reconnection studies. Here we briefly review the latest advances in 2D and compare and contrast the results with recent 3D studies that address role of anomalous transport in reconnection, effects of turbulence on the rate and structure, among others. Another outcome of recent research is the realization of a deeper link between turbulence and reconnection where the common denominator is the generic formation of electron scale sheets which dissipate the energy through reconnection. Finally, we close the review by listing some of the major outstanding problems in reconnection physics.

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Acknowledgements

This work was partially supported by NSF through EAGER 1105084 and 1202152 and by NASA’s NNH11CC65C grant. Simulations were performed on Kraken provided by the NSF at NICS, on Pleiades provided by NASA’s HEC Program, and resources of the National Center for Computational Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (Jaguar/Lens), which is supported by DOE under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725. Some of the research and simulations were part of the Blue Waters sustained-petascale computing project, which is supported by the NSF (OCI 07-25070) and the state of Illinois. Visualization and analysis were performed on Nautilus and Longhorn systems using ParaView and visualization software developed by the NICS RDAV group. We especially thank Burlen Loring for help with the visualization and preparation of the figures. We acknowledge useful conversations with A. Bhattacharjee, J. Birn, Paul Cassak, L. Chacon, M. Hesse, A. Lazarian, N. F. Loureiro, W. Matthaeus, S. Servidio, and J. Scudder. We thank A. Boozer for comments on an earlier draft, A. Le for discussions and preparation of one of the figures, and for the referee for many useful comments and suggestions that led to a significant improvement in the manuscript.

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  1. University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA, 92093-0407, USA

    Homa Karimabadi

  2. SciberQuest, Inc., Del Mar, CA, 92014, USA

    Homa Karimabadi & Vadim Roytershteyn

  3. Los Alamos National Laboratory, MS F699, Los Alamos, NM, USA

    William Daughton & Yi-Hsin Liu

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  1. Homa Karimabadi
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Correspondence to Homa Karimabadi.

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Karimabadi, H., Roytershteyn, V., Daughton, W. et al. Recent Evolution in the Theory of Magnetic Reconnection and Its Connection with Turbulence. Space Sci Rev 178, 307–323 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-013-0021-7

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