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209 records · Page 12
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2021

On the Presence and Thermalization of Cold Ions in the Exhaust of Antiparallel Symmetric Reconnection

Using fully kinetic 2.5 dimensional particle-in-cell simulations of anti-parallel symmetric magnetic reconnection, we investigate how initially cold ions are captured by the reconnection process, and how they evolve and behave in the exhaust. We find that initially cold ions can remain cold deep inside the exhaust. Cold ions that enter the exhaust downstream of active separatrices, closer to the dipolarization front, appear as cold counter-streaming beams behind the front. In the off-equatorial region, these cold ions generate ion-acoustic waves that aid in the thermalization both of the incoming and outgoing populations. Closest to the front, due to the stronger magnetization, the ions can remain relatively cold during the neutral plane crossing. In the intermediate exhaust, the weaker magnetization leads to enhanced pitch angle scattering and reflection. Cold ions that enter the exhaust closer to the X line, at active separatrices, evolve into a thermalized exhaust. Here, the cold populations are heated through a combination of thermalization at the separatrices and pitch angle scattering in the curved magnetic field around the neutral plane. Depending on where the ions enter the exhaust, and how long time they have spent there, they are accelerated to different energies. The superposition of separately thermalized ion populations that have been accelerated to different energies form the hot exhaust population.

Cecilia Norgren↗
NASA NTRS2021

Magnetospheric Multiscale Observations of an Expanding Oxygen Wave in Magnetic Reconnection

Heavier plasma species such as oxygen ions can have a large impact on the magnetic reconnection process. It has been hypothesized that the acceleration of demagnetized oxygen ions by the Hall electric field will lead to the formation of an oxygen wave that expands into the exhaust. By comparing data from NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale mission to a fully kinetic particle-in-cell simulation, we can for the first time provide observational evidence of such an expanding oxygen wave. The wave is characterized by an oxygen jet consisting of cold ions directed toward the neutral sheet associated with a density cavity. This density cavity forms as the EO are subject to collective acceleration by the Hall electric field leaving behind a region of low-density oxygen ions. Our results are important for the understanding of the role and effect of oxygen ions in magnetic reconnection.

Hakon Midthun Kolsto↗
NASA NTRS2021

The Micro‐Macro Coupling of Mass‐Loading in Symmetric Magnetic Reconnection With Cold Ions

We investigate how magnetic reconnection is influenced by an inflow of a dense cold ion population. We compare two 2.5D Particle-In-Cell simulations, one containing the cold population and one without. We find that the cold population influences the reconnection process on both global and kinetic scales, and that the dominant contribution can be explained through mass-loading. We provide an analysis of how these multiscale changes are related through kinetic processes in the ion diffusion region, the so-called micro-macro coupling of mass-loading. The inertia of the cold ion population is found to be the significant link that connects the changes on different scales. The cold and warm populations exhibit counter streaming behavior when and after the ion diffusion region reorganizes itself in response to the arrival of the cold population. This signature of the cold population should be observable by spacecraft observatories such as MMS.

Magnetic reconnection↗
NASA NTRS2023

Equilibrium Selection via Current Sheet Relaxation and Guide Field Amplification

Although there is a continuous spectrum of current sheet equilibria, how a particular equilibrium is selected by a given system remains a mystery. Yet, only a limited number of equilibrium solutions are used for analyses of magnetized plasma phenomena. Here we present the exact process of equilibrium selection, by analyzing the relaxation process of a disequilibrated current sheet under a finite guide field. It is shown via phase-space analyses and particle-in-cell simulations that the current sheet relaxes in such a way that the guide field is locally amplified, yielding a mixed equilibrium from the spectrum. Comparisons to spacecraft observations and solar wind current sheet statistics demonstrate that such mixed equilibria are ubiquitous and exist as underlying local structures in various physical environments.

Young-Dae Yoon↗
NASA NTRS2023

Electron Acceleration and Heating during Magnetic Reconnection in the Earth's Quasi-parallel Bow Shock

We perform a 2.5-dimensional particle-in-cell simulation of a quasi-parallel shock, using parameters for the Earth's bow shock, to examine electron acceleration and heating due to magnetic reconnection. The shock transition region evolves from the ion-coupled reconnection dominant stage to the electron-only reconnection dominant stage, as time elapses. The electron temperature enhances locally in each reconnection site, and ion-scale magnetic islands generated by ion-coupled reconnection show the most significant enhancement of the electron temperature. The electron energy spectrum shows a power law, with a power-law index around 6. We perform electron trajectory tracing to understand how they are energized. Some electrons interact with multiple electron-only reconnection sties, and Fermi acceleration occurs during multiple reflections. Electrons trapped in ion-scale magnetic islands can be accelerated in another mechanism. Islands move in the shock transition region, and electrons can obtain larger energy from the in-plane electric field than the electric potential in those islands. These newly found energization mechanisms in magnetic islands in the shock can accelerate electrons to energies larger than the achievable energies by the conventional energization due to the parallel electric field and shock drift acceleration. This study based on the selected particle analysis indicates that the maximum energy in the nonthermal electrons is achieved through acceleration in ion-scale islands, and electron-only reconnection accounts for no more than half of the maximum energy, as the lifetime of sub-ion-scale islands produced by electron-only reconnection is several times shorter than that of ion-scale islands.

Solar magnetic reconnection↗
NASA NTRS2023

Direct Observation of Electron Temperature Anisotropy Localized to One Separatrix during Electron-Only Magnetic Reconnection in a Laboratory Plasma

Anisotropic electron heating, Te∥/Te⊥ > 1 (relative to the local magnetic field) during electron-only magnetic reconnection with a large guide field is directly measured in a laboratory plasma through multi-dimensional incoherent Thomson scattering measurements of the electron velocity distribution function. The preferentially parallel electron heating is localized to one separatrix in the reconnection plane and anisotropies of 1.5 are observed. The localization of the heating to one separatrix and the anisotropy are reproduced with a 2D particle-in-cell simulation. The characteristics of the anisotropic heating are consistent with predictions for electron energization by the parallel reconnection electric field under strong guide field. The effective electron temperature is found to increase throughout the outflow region, a possible indication of the effects of collisions and the fully 3D nature of magnetic reconnection in the experiment.

Peiyun Shi↗
NASA NTRS2024

Oblique Instability of Quasi-Parallel Whistler Waves in the Presence of Cold and Warm Electron Populations

Whistler waves propagating nearly parallel to the ambient magnetic field experience a nonlinear instability due to transverse currents when the background plasma has a population of sufficiently low energy electrons. Intriguingly, this nonlinear process may generate oblique electrostatic waves, including whistlers near the resonance cone with properties resembling oblique chorus waves in the Earth’s magnetosphere. Focusing on the generation of oblique whistlers, earlier analysis of the instability is extended here to the case where low-energy background plasma consists of both a “cold” population with energy of a few eV and a “warm” electron component with energy of the order of 100 eV. This is motivated by spacecraft observations in the Earth’s magnetosphere where oblique chorus waves were shown to interact resonantly with the warm electrons. The main new results are: 1) the instability producing oblique electrostatic waves is sensitive to the shape of the electron distribution at low energies. In the whistler range of frequencies, two distinct peaks in the growth rate are typically present for the model considered: a peak associated with the warm electron population at relatively low wavenumbers and a peak associated with the cold electron population at relatively high wavenumbers; 2) overall, the instability producing oblique whistler waves near the resonance cone persists (with a reduced growth rate) even in the cases where the temperature of the cold population is relatively high, including cases where cold population is absent and only the warm population is included; 3) particle-in-cell simulations show that the instability leads to heating of the background plasma and formation of characteristic plateau and beam features in the parallel electron distribution function in the range of energies resonant with the instability. The plateau/beam features have been previously detected in spacecraft observations of oblique chorus waves. However, they have been attributed to external sources and have been proposed to be the mechanism generating oblique chorus. In the present scenario, the causality link is reversed and the instability generating oblique whistler waves is shown to be a possible mechanism for formation of the plateau and beam features.

Vadim Roytershteyn↗
NASA NTRS2024

Enablement or Suppression of Collisionless Magnetic- Reconnection By the Background Plasma Beta and Guide Field

How magnetic reconnection is triggered or suppressed is an important outstanding problem. By considering pinching of a current sheet that has formed at non-equilibrium, we show that the background plasma beta is a major controlling factor in the onset and nature of magnetic reconnection. A high plasma beta inhibits a current sheet from pinching down to kinetic scales required for collisionless reconnection, while a low beta facilitates it. A simple adiabatic model provides a good prediction for the reconnection-enabled regions in thickness versus peak plasma beta space, which are confirmed by a series of particle-in-cell simulations with varying initial parameters. A strong dependency of the peak reconnection rate on the plasma beta is clearly predicted with reconnection being favored in low beta conditions. A finite guide field is an additional source of reconnection suppression, consistent with previous observations that reconnection requires a large enough magnetic shear angle for high-beta situations.

Young-Dae Yoon↗
NASA NTRS2003

UCLA Parallel PIC Framework

The UCLA Parallel PIC Framework (UPIC) has been developed to provide trusted components for the rapid construction of new, parallel Particl-in-Cell (PIC) codes.

particle-in-cell↗
NASA NTRS1994

3D Electromagnetic Plasma Particle Simulations on the Intel Delta Parallel Computer

A three-dimensional electromagnetic PIC code has been developed on the 512 node Intel Touchstone Delta MIMD parallel computer. This code is based on the General Concurrent PIC algorithm which uses a domain decomposition to divide the computation among the processors. The 3D simulation domain can be partitioned into 1-, 2-, or 3-dimensional subdomains. Particles must be exchanged between processors as they move among the subdomains.

PIC↗