Experimental Demonstration of the Collisionless Plasmoid Instability below the Ion Kinetic Scale during Magnetic Reconnection

The spontaneous formation of magnetic islands is observed in driven, antiparallel magnetic reconnection on the Terrestrial Reconnection Experiment. We here provide direct experimental evidence that the plasmoid instability is active at the electron scale inside the ion diffusion region in a low coll...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review letters 2016-06, Vol.116 (25), p.255001-255001, Article 255001
Main Authors: Olson, J, Egedal, J, Greess, S, Myers, R, Clark, M, Endrizzi, D, Flanagan, K, Milhone, J, Peterson, E, Wallace, J, Weisberg, D, Forest, C B
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Fluid dynamics
Formations
Instability
Magnetic islands
Nucleation
Plasmas
Plasmoids
Stability
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Summary:The spontaneous formation of magnetic islands is observed in driven, antiparallel magnetic reconnection on the Terrestrial Reconnection Experiment. We here provide direct experimental evidence that the plasmoid instability is active at the electron scale inside the ion diffusion region in a low collisional regime. The experiments show the island formation occurs at a smaller system size than predicted by extended magnetohydrodynamics or fully collisionless simulations. This more effective seeding of magnetic islands emphasizes their importance to reconnection in naturally occurring 3D plasmas.
ISSN:0031-9007
1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/physrevlett.116.255001