Fast Magnetic Reconnection and the Hall Effect
- Visualizations by:
- Tom Bridgman
- Written by:
- Mara Johnson-Groh
- Scientific consulting by:
- Yi-Hsin Liu
- View full credits
One of the key components in magnetic reconnection is the collision of two magnetic field regions with opposite-directed field lines, imbedded in a plasma. The field and plasma combination forms an X-shaped configuration at their closest, and most intense point.
These visualizations are plotted from a reconnection model generated by VPIC (Vector Particle-In-Cell) code. Quantities are plotted in 'dimensionless' coordinates, that are normalized to the ion inertial length (di).
This data visualization illustrates the motion of electrons (red) and ions (cyan) in the x,z plane through the magnetic and current configuration in the 'X-shaped' region of magnetic reconnection. The gold color represents the current density flowing in the y-direction (out of the plane of the plot).
The magnetic vector potential is represented by the blue-green curves which dip inward from the top and sides of the plot. This forms the 'X' region that confines the electric current (gold) which is directed out of the plane of the plot (towards the viewer). The Electron Diffusion Region (EDR) is the intense horizontal oblong blob near the center of the plot.
Electrons and ions (plasma) flow into the region from the top and bottom of the plot, initially moving together. As the plasma moves into regions with less intense magnetic field and stronger electric current, the ion and electron trajectories begin to diverge, driven by the Hall effect (Wikipedia). This accelerates and channels the flow of particles outward, through the left and right wings of the 'X', where the magnetic energy density is lowest. The net process is magnetic energy is converted into particle energy.
This data visualization illustrates the flow of packets of energy (orange trajectories and dots) in the x,z plane through the 'X-shaped' region of magnetic reconnection. The background color represents the magnetic energy density, with black representing low energy-density and white as high energy-density.
The incoming magnetic energy is diverted and transported to the downstream region leaving an energy void at the X-line.
This data visualization illustrates the motion of electrons (red) and ions (cyan) in the x,z plane through the magnetic configuration in the 'X-shaped' region of magnetic reconnection. In this version, the color lines represent the magnetic field intensity illustrating how the particle motion undergoes the most direction change in regions where the magnetic field change is large.
For More Information
See NASA.gov
Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio
Visualizer
- Tom Bridgman (GST) [Lead]
Writer
- Mara Johnson-Groh (Wyle Information Systems) [Lead]
Scientist
- Yi-Hsin Liu (None) [Lead]
Technical support
- Ian Jones (ADNET)
- Laurence Schuler (ADNET)
Papers
This visualization is based on the following papers:Missions
This visualization is related to the following missions:Series
This visualization can be found in the following series:Datasets used in this visualization
VPIC (A.K.A. Vector Particle-In-Cell Project)
Open-Source Vector Particle-In-Cell (VPIC) plasma code.
Dataset can be found at: https://github.com/lanl/vpic
See more visualizations using this data setNote: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details nor the data sets themselves on our site.