Publication Date:
2023-08-29
Description:
Turbulence and magnetic reconnection are both fundamental phenomena, occurring across a wide variety of plasma systems from the laboratory to space and astrophysical plasmas. The nonlinear dynamics within a turbulent system are well known to generate intense current sheets, which have long been thought to be locations where magnetic reconnection can occur. However, the complex magnetic topologies and small-scale nature of this “turbulence-driven” magnetic reconnection has traditionally made it challenging to study from both a numerical and observational perspective. Over the past 8 years, NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission has been providing cutting-edge, high-time-resolution, multipoint measurements that are capable of directly observing turbulence-driven magnetic reconnection events in Earth’s turbulent magnetosheath in unprecedented detail. In this talk, we will discuss the observations that have been made of turbulence-driven reconnection with MMS, demonstrating how the properties of the turbulent environment can influence how magnetic reconnection proceeds – leading to so-called electron-only reconnection. We will further discuss the potential role of these magnetic reconnection events in the turbulent plasma and what the recent observations from Earth’s magnetosheath may reveal about turbulence-driven magnetic reconnection in other space and astrophysical plasma environments, such as the solar wind.
Language:
English
Type:
info:eu-repo/semantics/conferenceObject
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