糖心TV

MAGNETIC RECONNECTION

s a fundamental plasma physics process, magnetic reconnection plays an important role in many aspects of astro, solar and magnetospheric physics, as well as in laboratory plasmas. In particular, magnetic reconnection is known to play an important role in solar flares, violent explosions in the solar atmosphere and heating the corona, the upper atmosphere of the Sun, which is some 200 times hotter than the solar surface. The study of magnetic reconnection in three-dimensions is still in its infancy. One of the most important questions, and one would imagine a relative easy one to answer, is what is the rate of reconnection? This is a very important question if magnetic reconnection is the true driver for the rapid conversion of magnetic to kinetic and thermal energy seen in solar flares. I shall present a very basic introduction to the Sun, and magnetic reconnection. Then I shall consider the rate of reconnection in one simple resistive MHD numerical experiment which models the basic interaction of two opposite-polarity magnetic fragments in an overlying field. In particular, I will show that the locations, rates and duration of reconnection are not what previously might have been anticipated. Furthermore, I will explain what the implications of these results are for coronal heating and solar flares.