Collisionless Magnetic Reconnection

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Collisionless magnetic reconnection is a well known, but poorly understood phenomenon that is of critical importance to space plasma physics. This project seeks to understand the fundamental microphysics that produces collisionless reconnection by utilizing a variety of 2- and 3-dimensional computer codes to simulate the reconnection process. The computer codes will use hybrid techniques, where the ions are treated in kinetic particle terms and the electrons are treated as a magnetized fluid, and particle-in-cell (PIC) techniques where both ions and electrons are treated in full particle dynamical terms. The goal is to understand the microphysics that underlies all collisionless reconnection.