HR: 09:20h
AN: SH41C-06 INVITED    [Abstracts]
TI: Causes and Consequences of Reconnection in the Laboratory
AU: * Prager, S C
EM: scprager@wisc.edu
AF: University of Wisconsin, 1150 University Ave, Madison, WI 53706, United States
AB: Study of reconnection in the toroidal laboratory configuration known as the reversed field pinch reveals numerous features that are likely shared in part by magnetospheric and solar plasmas. In the MST experiment, reconnection is impulsive temporally and global spatially. Multiple, coupled reconnections occur, spread globally throughout the plasma. During a sudden reconnection event, the magnetic energy in the plasma is reduced by about ten percent, while the ion thermal energy increases several-fold (in one hundred microseconds). The reconnections rearrange the magnetic structure and lead to chaotic field line wander. MHD theory and nonlinear computation predicts the occurrence of multiple reconnections (nonlinearly coupled), magnetic energy release and, to some extent, the impulsive onset. But two-fluid Hall effects are measured to be strong as well, as also predicted by theory. Theoretical work is underway to explain the ion heating, which is strongest for heavier ions (as also occurs in the solar wind).
DE: 2723 Magnetic reconnection (7526, 7835)
DE: 7524 Magnetic fields
DE: 7526 Magnetic reconnection (2723, 7835)
DE: 7831 Laboratory studies and experimental techniques
SC: SPA-Solar and Heliospheric Physics [SH]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting