Anisotropic Electron Heating in Turbulence-driven Magnetic Reconnection in the Near-Sun Solar Wind - Institut Jean Lamour Accéder directement au contenu
Article Dans Une Revue (Article De Synthèse) The Astrophysical Journal Année : 2022

Anisotropic Electron Heating in Turbulence-driven Magnetic Reconnection in the Near-Sun Solar Wind

Résumé

Abstract We perform a high-resolution, 2D, fully kinetic numerical simulation of a turbulent plasma system with observation-driven conditions, in order to investigate the interplay between turbulence, magnetic reconnection, and particle heating from ion to subelectron scales in the near-Sun solar wind. We find that the power spectra of the turbulent plasma and electromagnetic fluctuations show multiple power-law intervals down to scales smaller than the electron gyroradius. Magnetic reconnection is observed to occur in correspondence of current sheets with a thickness of the order of the electron inertial length, which form and shrink owing to interacting ion-scale vortices. In some cases, both ion and electron outflows are observed (the classic reconnection scenario), while in others—typically for the shortest current sheets—only electron jets are present (“electron-only reconnection”). At the onset of reconnection, the electron temperature starts to increase and a strong parallel temperature anisotropy develops. This suggests that in strong turbulence electron-scale coherent structures may play a significant role for electron heating, as impulsive and localized phenomena such as magnetic reconnection can efficiently transfer energy from the electromagnetic fields to particles.
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Dates et versions

hal-03950773 , version 1 (22-01-2023)

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Luca Franci, Emanuele Papini, Alfredo Micera, Giovanni Lapenta, Petr Hellinger, et al.. Anisotropic Electron Heating in Turbulence-driven Magnetic Reconnection in the Near-Sun Solar Wind. The Astrophysical Journal, 2022, 936 (1), pp.27. ⟨10.3847/1538-4357/ac7da6⟩. ⟨hal-03950773⟩
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