Slide 1

How common is reconnection in a turbulent plasma? G. Stenberg, M. Andr, A. Vaivads, Yu. V. Khotyaintsev (IRF, Uppsala) Retin (Austrian Academy of Sceince, Graz) E. Lucek, (Imperial College, London) Slide 2 Magnetic reconnection (large-scale structures) Magnetosphere (e.g. Paschmann, Nature, 1979) Solar wind (e.g. Phan, Nature, 2006) Slide 3 Magnetic reconnection (small-scale structures, in turbulence) Turbulence (in the magnetosheath) (Retin et al. Nature Phys., 2007) (Sundkvist et al., PRL, 2007) Slide 4 Statistics Reconnection in turbulence (in the magnetosheath) Slide 5 Details Current sheet in turbulence (Stenberg, subm. to Phys. Rev. Lett.) Slide 6 70 current sheets Reconnection No reconnection Reconnection No reconnection ~58% Average: 10 -12 to 10 -11 W/m 3 Slide 7 Reconnection Simulation MHD turbulence (Servidio et al. Phys. Rev. Lett., 2009) Slide 8 Conclusions Reconnection is common in turbulence (58% of 70 current sheets) Reconnection rate is high, 0.3 (consistent with simulations) Dissipation in current sheet 1-210 -10 W/m 3 giving on average 10 -12 to 10 -11 W/m 3