Experimental Study of Two-fluid Effects on Magnetic Reconnection in a Laboratory Plasma with Variable Collisionality
Authors: Masaaki Yamada, Yang Ren, Hantao Ji, Joshua Breslau, Stefan Gerhardt, Russell Kulsrud, and Aleksey Kuritsyn
Published in: Physics of Plasmas 13:052119 (May 2006)
Date of PPPL Report: June 2006
This paper describes the recent findings on two-fluid effects on magnetic reconnection in plasmas with variable collisionality in the MRX (Magnetic Reconnection Experiment) plasmas [M. Yamada et al, Phys. Plasmas 4, 1936 (1997)]. The MRX device has been upgraded to accommodate a variety of reconnection operation modes and high energy density experiments by increasing its capacitor bank energy and extending the discharge duration. As our experimental operation regime has moved from the collisional to the collision-free, two-fluid effects have become more evident. It is observed that the 2-D profile of the neutral sheet is changed significantly from the rectangular shape of the familiar Sweet-Parker type to a double wedge shape as the collisionality is reduced and the reconnection rate increases. The recent evolution of our experimental research from the magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) to the two-fluid analysis is presented to illuminate the physics of Hall MHD in a collision-free reconnection layer. In particular, a clear experimental verification of an out-of-plane quadrupole field, a characteristic signature of the Hall MHD, has been made in the MRX neutral sheet, where the sheet width is comparable to the ion skin depth. It is important to note that the Hall effect, which occur due to 2-D laminar flows of electrons in the reconnection plane, is observed together with the presence of low and high frequency magnetic turbulence, which often has 3-D structures. These observations in MRX have striking similarities to the recent magnetospheric measurements of reconnection region, in which the quadrupole component has also been detected together with magnetic fluctuations.