Experimental Studies on the 3D Macro- and Microphysics of Magnetic Reconnection

Abstract:

Magnetic reconnection has been extensively studied in 2D geometries for many decades and considerable progress has been made in understating 2D reconnection physics, yet in real plasmas reconnection is fundamentally 3D in nature. Only recently has it become possible to study 3D reconnection using simulations, however some initial results have suggested that the inclusion of 3D effects does not strongly affect the basic properties of reconnection (e.g. reconnection rate or particle acceleration). Yet on the other hand, previous experiments, without direct 3D measurements, have implied that 3D effects could be important even in a quasi-2D system. Here we experimentally study both the (1) macro- and (2) microphysics of 3D reconnection in order to directly test the importance of 3D effects in a quasi-2D experiment. Using fully simultaneous 3D measurements, it is shown that during highly driven reconnection the macroscopic structure of the current sheet can become strongly 3D despite an essentially 2D upstream region. The correlation length along the current sheet is measured to be far shorter than suggested by kinetic simulations. Results from new experiments with stronger reconnection drive and diagnostics designed to estimate the 3D reconnection rate will be discussed. With regards to (2), the 3D microphysics, new diagnostics capable of measuring fluctuations at frequencies up to the electron cyclotron frequency (~ 300 MHz) have been developed and have identified the presence of very high frequency waves (~ 100 MHz) during asymmetric reconnection, localized to the low-density side. The detailed properties of these waves, including the measured power spectra and dispersion relation, will be discussed and compared with both previous satellite observations of high-frequency waves as well as with theoretical predictions on the generation of whistler waves during reconnection.