Effects of Global Boundary and Local Collisionality on Magnetic Reconnection in a Laboratory Plasma
Authors: A. Kuritsyn, H. Ji, S.P. Gerhardt, Y. Ren, and M. Yamada
Abstract:
The magnetic reconnection process is studied in a wide range of operating conditions in the well-controlled Magnetic Reconnection Experiment. The reconnection rate is observed to be a function of both global (i.e., system size) and local (collisionality) plasma parameters. When only local collisionality is lowered, the current sheet is shortened while effective resistivity is enhanced, both accelerating reconnection rates. At a fixed collisionality, the current sheet length increases with system size, resulting in the reduction of the reconnection rate. These results quantitatively agree with a generalized Sweet-Parker analysis.
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Accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters
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Download PPPL-4255 Preprint (July 2007) (pdf 372 kB)