Fox W, Sciortino F, V Stechow A, Jara-Almonte J, Yoo J, Ji H, Yamada M
Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, Princeton, New Jersey 08543, USA.
Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College, London SW7 2BW, United Kingdom.
Phys Rev Lett. 2017 Mar 24;118(12):125002. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.125002. Epub 2017 Mar 21.
We report detailed laboratory observations of the structure of a reconnection current sheet in a two-fluid plasma regime with a guide magnetic field. We observe and quantitatively analyze the quadrupolar electron pressure variation in the ion-diffusion region, as originally predicted by extended magnetohydrodynamics simulations. The projection of the electron pressure gradient parallel to the magnetic field contributes significantly to balancing the parallel electric field, and the resulting cross-field electron jets in the reconnection layer are diamagnetic in origin. These results demonstrate how parallel and perpendicular force balance are coupled in guide field reconnection and confirm basic theoretical models of the importance of electron pressure gradients for obtaining fast magnetic reconnection.
我们报告了在具有导向磁场的双流体等离子体区域中重联电流片结构的详细实验室观测结果。我们观测并定量分析了离子扩散区域中的四极电子压力变化，这正如扩展磁流体动力学模拟最初所预测的那样。平行于磁场的电子压力梯度投影对平衡平行电场有显著贡献，并且在重联层中产生的跨场电子喷流起源于抗磁效应。这些结果展示了在导向场重联中平行和垂直力平衡是如何耦合的，并证实了关于电子压力梯度对实现快速磁重联重要性的基本理论模型。
