Electron-only Magnetic Reconnection and Role of Reconnection in Kinetic Plasma Turbulence

了解湍流和重联之间的密切联系对更广泛的日球圈群落越来越重要。湍流是能量从大尺度运动向小尺度运动转移的基本物理过程，湍流能量以等离子体热量和粒子能量的形式耗散。磁重联是将磁能转化为等离子体动能和热能的普遍物理过程。这两个过程都对诸如日冕、太阳风和行星磁层等系统的动力学和能量学产生重要影响。该项目的目标是提高对重连和湍流之间相互关系的理解。该项目将支持女科学家PI的研究，为达特茅斯学院的本科生提供研究机会，并为高中生创造教育资源。在动荡的环境中，如太阳风和地球的磁鞘，已经观察到磁重联。在磁鞘中，最近对纯电子重联的探测激发了越来越多的太阳物理学研究。通过航天器观测、模拟和理论分析，认为纯电子重联和标准重联有助于湍流的能量耗散和湍流级联的变化。我们对重联如何影响湍流和湍流如何影响湍流的物理学知识还处于发展的早期阶段。该项目的主要目标是开发一种新的方法来识别和检查电子和标准重连接，使用等离子体湍流的回旋动力学模拟。这将通过解决三个科学目标来实现。第一个目标是在完全非线性动力学湍流中识别纯电子重联。第二个目标是研究阿尔夫尼湍流中纯电子重联的演化。第三个目标是评估纯电子重联和标准重联在磁化湍流能量耗散中的作用。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Understanding the close interconnection between turbulence and reconnection has been of increasing importance to the broader heliospheric community. Turbulence is a fundamental physics process of transferring energy from large-scale motions to small kinetic scales where the turbulence energy is dissipated as plasma heat and particle energization. Magnetic reconnection is a universal physical process that converts magnetic energy to plasma kinetic and thermal energy. Both processes critically influence the dynamics and energetics of systems such as the solar corona, solar wind, and planetary magnetospheres. The goal of this project is to improve the understanding of the interconnection between reconnection and turbulence. The project will support the research of a female scientist PI, provide research opportunities to undergraduate students at Dartmouth College, and create education resources for high school students. Magnetic reconnection has been observed in turbulent environments such as the solar wind and the Earth’s magnetosheath. In the magnetosheath, recent detection of electron-only reconnection has motivated increasing research in heliophysics. Electron-only and standard reconnection have been suggested to contribute to energy dissipation of the turbulence and changes in the turbulent cascade by spacecraft observations, simulations, and theory. Our knowledge on the physics underlying how reconnection influences turbulence and vice versa is at the early stages of development. The main goal of this project is to develop a new method for identifying and examining electron-only and standard reconnection using gyrokinetic simulations of plasma turbulence. This will be achieved through addressing three science objectives. The first objective is to identify electron-only reconnection in fully nonlinear kinetic turbulence. The second objective is to examine the evolution of electron-only reconnection in Alfvenic turbulence. The third objective is to assess the role of electron-only and standard reconnection in the energy dissipation of magnetized turbulence.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.