Collisionless magnetic reconnection in the magnetosphere

Magnetic reconnection underlies the physical mechanism of explosive phenomena in the solar atmosphere and planetary magnetospheres, where plasma is usually collisionless. In the standard model of collisionless magnetic reconnection, the diffusion region consists of two substructures: an electron diffusion region is embedded in an ion diffusion region, in which their scales are based on the electron and ion inertial lengths. In the ion diffusion region, ions are unfrozen in the magnetic fields while electrons are magnetized. The resulted Hall effect from the different motions between ions and electrons leads to the production of the in-plane currents, and then generates the quadrupolar structure of out-of-plane magnetic field. In the electron diffusion region, even electrons become unfrozen in the magnetic fields, and the reconnection electric field is contributed by the off-diagonal electron pressure terms in the generalized Ohm's law. The reconnection rate is insensitive to the specific mechanism to break the frozen-in condition, and is on the order of 0.1. In recent years, the launching of Cluster, THEMIS, MMS, and other spacecraft has provided us opportunities to study collisionless magnetic reconnection in the Earth's magnetosphere, and to verify and extend more insights on the standard model of collisionless magnetic reconnection. In this paper, we will review what we have learned beyond the standard model with the help of observations from these spacecraft as well as kinetic simulations.     

Fast reconnection in nonrelativistic 2D electron-positron plasmas

In this Letter, we put forth (and validate numerically) a fluid-based analytical theory, which predicts that fast reconnection in nonrelativistic, low-beta pair plasmas is possible in collisionless regimes. This novel theoretical result complements recent kinetic computational evidence and challenges the accepted understanding, which considers fast dispersive waves (not supported in pair plasmas) as the key enabling physics ingredient for fast reconnection. The implications of this theory for the understanding of fast reconnection in standard electron-proton plasmas are discussed.     

Ultrarelativistic electron-positron plasma

Ultrarelativistic electron-positron plasmas can be produced in high-intensity laser fields and play a role in various astrophysical situations. Their properties can be calculated using QED at finite temperature. Here we will use perturbative QED at finite temperature for calculating various important properties, such as the equation of state, dispersion relations of collective plasma modes of photons and electrons, Debye screening, damping rates, mean free paths, collision times, transport coefficients, and particle production rates, of ultrarelativistic electron-positron plasmas. In particular, we will focus on electron-positron plasmas produced with ultra-strong lasers.     

Modulation instability of intense laser beam in an electron-positron plasma

Modulation instability of an intense right-hand elliptically polarized laser beam propagating through an electron-positron plasma is investigated by a new method. The nonlinear dispersion relation, in which the relativistic and ponderomotive nonlinearities are taken into account, is obtained for the laser radiation in electron-positron plasma by the Lorentz transformation. The Karpman equation is generalized to the case of three dimensions with three field components. When the nonlinear frequency shift of the electromagnetic field in plasma is involved, the nonlinear evolution equation for the slowly varying envelope of the laser field is obtained. Thus, modulation instability of the intense laser beam in electron-positron plasma is studied and the temporal growth rate of the instability is derived. The analysis shows that the growth rate of modulation instability is increased significantly near the critical surface in a laser-plasma.     

Excitation of wake-fields in an electron-positron plasma by an ultrarelativistic proton beam

The excitation of one-dimensional nonlinear relativistic wake-waves in an electron-positron plasma by an ultrarelativistic proton beam is discussed on the basis of a self-consistent analytical model. It is shown that in contrast to a common plasma with heavy ions these waves are have an oscillation character at any ratio of the beam density and that of the electron-positron plasma.     

Collisionless absorption in an overdense plasma with anisotropic electron distribution function

Collisionless absorption of linearly polarized electromagnetic wave in a plasma with anisotropic bi-Maxwellian electron velocity distribution is investigated. Due to the wave magnetic field influence on the electron kinetics in the skin layer, the wave absorption is found to significantly depend on the degree of the electron temperature anisotropy. Depending on the value of the skin layer anomaly parameter, and on the electron temperature anisotropy degree, the conditions are found when a significant decrease or increase of the collisionless absorption is expected. Received 25 January 2002     

Collisionless stopping of electron current in an inhomogeneous electron magnetohydrodynamics plasma

A brief review of a recent work on a novel collisionless scheme for stopping electron current pulse in plasma is presented. This scheme relies on the inhomogeneity of the plasma medium. This mechanism can be used for heating an overdense regime of plasma where lasers cannot penetrate. The method can ensure efficient localized heating at a desired location. The suitability of the scheme to the frontline fast ignition laser fusion experiment has been illustrated.     

Pseudoscalar particle-photon interaction induced by an external magnetic field in an electron-positron plasma

The effective interaction of a pseudoscalar particle with a photon in a magnetized electron-positron plasma is investigated. The plasma and field contributions to the effective coupling between the pseudoscalar particle and the photon are calculated. The effective coupling is shown to be independent of the parameters of the medium and the particle 4-momentum in certain limiting cases.     

Superfluidity of the electron-positron plasma

The asymptotical pattern of the transition temperature is found in a field both of high density and low ones of electron-positron plasma. The investigation is carried out for a nonrelativistical field in which the system temperature is small as compared with a rest electron energy.     

Coherent nonlinear structures in dense electron-positron plasma

It is shown that rarefactive-type double layer structures exist in ultradense electron-positron plasma.For this purpose,an extended Korteweg de Vries equation is derived and solved analytically in the low amplitude limit by employing the appropriate fluid equations.A strong influence of quantum degeneracy pressure of electrons and positrons,quantum diffraction effects and concentration of background positive ions on double layer is noticed.It is also pointed out that the amplitude and steepness of the double layer increases with an increase in ion concentration or ion charge number.The results are examined numerically for some interesting cases of dense plasmas with illustrations.     

Solitons in a magnetized relativistic electron-positron plasma

Nonlinear equations for the interaction of the Langmuir wave field and the transverse electromagnetic field in the pulsar magnetosphere are derived. These equations take into account the modulational instability of plasma waves and its decay into two transversal waves.     

Fast magnetic reconnection in laser-produced plasma bubbles

Recent experiments have observed magnetic reconnection in high-energy-density, laser-produced plasma bubbles, with reconnection rates observed to be much higher than can be explained by classical theory. Based on fully kinetic particle simulations we find that fast reconnection in these strongly driven systems can be explained by magnetic flux pileup at the shoulder of the current sheet and subsequent fast reconnection via two-fluid, collisionless mechanisms. In the strong drive regime with two-fluid effects, we find that the ultimate reconnection time is insensitive to the nominal system Alfvén time.     

Laser field absorption in self-generated electron-positron pair plasma

Recently, much attention has been attracted to the problem of limitations on the attainable intensity of high power lasers [A.?M. Fedotov et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 080402 (2010)]. The laser energy can be absorbed by electron-positron pair plasma produced from a seed by a strong laser field via the development of the electromagnetic cascades. The numerical model for a self-consistent study of electron-positron pair plasma dynamics is developed. Strong absorption of the laser energy in self-generated overdense electron-positron pair plasma is demonstrated. It is shown that the absorption becomes important for a not extremely high laser intensity I ～ 10(24) W/cm(2) achievable in the near future.     

Magneto-modulational instability of a relativistic electron-positron plasma

It is shown that a magneto-modulational instability can develop in an electron-positron plasma. The main characteristics of this instability are presented in a fully relativistic treatment. The mechanism of the instability is associated with an anisotropy of the nonlinear plasma permittivity.     

Neutrino interaction with strongly magnetized electron-positron plasma

A study is made of a complete set of neutrino-electron processes in a magnetized plasma. It is shown that processes involving neutrinos in the initial and final states ve ^? → ve ^? and v ? ve ^? e ⁺ have kinematic amplification in the ultrarelativistic limit. Relatively simple expressions are obtained for the probability and average neutrino energy-momentum loss which are convenient for quantitative analysis. It is observed that the total contribution of ve processes did not depend on the chemical potential of the magnetized electron-positron plasma.     

极端相对论性正负电子对等离子体中横振荡的色散关系

 由伏拉索夫方程和费米分布函数的相对论性修正形式推导出相对论性正负电子对等离子体中横波的色散方程,对等离子体中的横波进行解析研究,得到长波支和短波支的色散关系。从解析的色散曲线发现了与Mikhailovskii在极端相对论性情况下对于电子-离子等离子体中色散关系研究相类似的结果:在极端相对论性等离子体中横波的解析色散曲线具有不连续性。基于解析色散曲线的不连续性,进而采用数值计算的方法求解了完整的等离子体色散方程,得到其数值解,数值色散曲线可将解析上的长波和短波衔接起来,使其成为一条完整的色散曲线。     

Dynamical plasma response during driven magnetic reconnection

Direct measurements of a collisionless current channel during driven magnetic reconnection are obtained for the first time on the Versatile Toroidal Facility. The size of the diffusion region is found to scale with the electron drift orbit width, independent of the ion mass and plasma density. Based on experimental observations, analytic expressions governing the dynamical evolution of the current profile and the formation of the electrostatic potential that develops in response to the externally imposed reconnection drive are established. This time response is closely linked to the presence of ion polarization currents.