CAREER: Understanding Collisionless Magnetic Reconnection as a Fundamental Heliospheric Process

Magnetic reconnection is a fundamental plasma process that occurs throughout the heliosphere. Reconnection efficiently converts magnetic energy into particle energy and likely plays a critical role in dissipating energy in systems where collisions are infrequent, such as the solar corona, turbulent solar wind, and Earth’s magnetosphere. Because of this, a detailed kinetic description of magnetic reconnection is necessary for understanding fundamental heliospheric processes, including solar flares, turbulence dissipation, and solar wind-magnetospheric interaction. This CAREER project seeks to understand how collisionless physics modifies the process of magnetic reconnection. The education component includes mentoring student research (high school through graduate students), public outreach, and the development of a High-Performance Computing workshop for undergraduate students in Hawai’i. This research seeks to understand how collisionless physics modifies the process of magnetic reconnection and how this manifests in the heliosphere. The research addresses the following three key Science Objectives (SO): SO#1: Determine how a velocity shear alters collisionless magnetic reconnection. Understand how an increasing shear velocity modifies the reconnection characteristic (i.e., reconnection rate, outflow velocity, and heating relate) in the kinetic limit. SO#2: Understand the role of increased inflowing ion and electron temperature in magnetic reconnection in anti-parallel and guide field configurations. SO#3: Identify the effects of energetic, non-thermal electrons on the reconnection process. Reconnection is likely an efficient source of non-thermal electrons, which may feedback on the reconnecting system. These objectives will be achieved with a combination of theory, kinetic modeling, and observations. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.