Magnetic Reconnection near the Dreicer Limit

首席研究员(PI)将对等离子体中未被探索的、重要的弱碰撞重联机制进行全面的理论研究，在该机制中，库仑碰撞起作用，但重联电场与逃逸电子的德雷瑟极限相当或更大。这些结果将对描述日冕和过渡区的重联过程有直接的科学应用。PI打算使用自洽建模和最先进的、完全动力学的、带蒙特卡罗处理的库仑碰撞的单元内粒子模拟，来量化这种重新连接的实际后果，例如整体等离子体加热和粒子加速，以提供对相关物理的第一性原理描述。国际和平研究所指出，这项研究将在等离子体物理学的各个子领域得到广泛应用。该项目的教育目标包括培训重联物理、千万亿级计算和科学可视化方面的博士后研究人员。此外，PI的雇主SciberQuest，Inc.还与圣地亚哥超级计算机中心名为“高中生研究体验”(REHS)的实习项目建立了持续的合作关系。作为该项目的一部分，PI将通过REHS计划每年指导两名学生。

The Principal Investigator (PI) will perform a comprehensive theoretical study of the poorly explored and important regime of weakly collisional reconnection in plasmas, where Coulomb collisions play a role, but where reconnection electric fields are comparable to, or larger than, the Dreicer limit for runaway electrons. These results will have direct scientific application to describing reconnection processes in the solar corona and transition region. The PI intends to quantify the practical consequences of such reconnection, such as bulk plasma heating and particle acceleration, using self-consistent modeling and state-of-the-art, fully kinetic, particle-in-cell simulations with a Monte-Carlo treatment of the Coulomb collisions, in order to provide a first-principles description of the relevant physics. The PI notes that this research will have widespread applications in a variety of sub-fields of plasma physics. This project's educational objectives include the training of a postdoctoral researcher in reconnection physics, petascale computing, and scientific visualization. In addition, the PI's employer, SciberQuest, Inc., has an ongoing partnership with the San Diego Supercomputer Center's internship program entitled "Research Experience for High School Students" (REHS). As part of this project, the PI will mentor two students per year through the REHS program.