HR: 1340h
AN: SM53B-0406    [Abstracts]
TI: Laboratory Modeling of Reconnection in the Magnetosphere
AU: * Messer, S J
EM: messer@ccs.nrl.navy.mil
AF: NRL-NRC Postdoctoral Associate, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC 20375 United States
AU: Amatucci, W E
EM: amatucci@ccs.nrl.navy.mil
AF: Plasma Physics Division, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC 20375 United States
AU: Rudakov, L I
EM: lrudakov@ppdmail.nrl.navy.mil
AF: Berkeley Scholars, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC 20375 United States
AU: Blackwell, D
EM: davidb@ccs.nrl.navy.mil
AF: SFA, Inc., 9315 Largo Drive West Suite 200, Largo, MD 20774 United States
AU: Huba, J
EM: huba@ppdmail.nrl.navy.mil
AF: Plasma Physics Division, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC 20375 United States
AU: Walker, D
EM: dwalker@ccs.nrl.navy.mil
AF: Plasma Physics Division, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC 20375 United States
AB: The Space Plasma Simulation Chamber (SPSC) at the Naval Research Laboratory is being used for investigation of 3-dimensional magnetic reconnection with ratios of length scale to ion skin depth comparable to those observed in Earth's magnetotail. The SPSC uses a steady-state cylindrical plasma column with a background magnetic field of 200 Gauss. We initiate the reconnection events and plasma dynamics, by pulsing an axial magnetic field rising to about 400 Gauss in about 2 $\mu$s. The experimental observations will be compared to theory and numerical simulations.
DE: 7831 Laboratory studies
DE: 7835 Magnetic reconnection
DE: 2772 Plasma waves and instabilities
DE: 0639 Nonlinear electromagnetics
DE: 0654 Plasmas
SC: SPA-Magnetospheric Physics [SM]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting