Ion and Electron Heating Characteristics of Magnetic Reconnection in a Two Flux Loop Merging Experiment

Y. Ono, H. Tanabe, Y. Hayashi, T. Ii, Y. Narushima, T. Yamada, M. Inomoto, and C. Z. Cheng

Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 185001 – Published 26 October 2011

Abstract

Characteristics of the high-power reconnection heating were measured for the first time directly by two-dimensional measurements of ion and electron temperatures. While electrons are heated mainly inside the current sheet by the Ohmic heating power, ions are heated mainly by fast shock or viscosity damping of the reconnection outflow in the two downstream areas. The magnetic reconnection converts the energy of reconnecting magnetic field $B_{p}$ mostly to the ion thermal energy, indicating that the reconnection heating energy is proportional to $B_{p}^{2}$ .

Received 21 May 2011

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.107.185001

Authors & Affiliations

Y. Ono^1,*, H. Tanabe¹, Y. Hayashi¹, T. Ii¹, Y. Narushima², T. Yamada¹, M. Inomoto¹, and C. Z. Cheng³

¹Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
²National Institute for Fusion Science, Gifu, Japan
³Plasma and Space Science Center, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan

^*ono@k.u-tokyo.ac.jp

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Vol. 107, Iss. 18 — 28 October 2011

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