Colloquium: How does Magnetic Reconnection work: what we know, and what we don’t
Magnetic reconnection is arguably the most important energy conversion and transport process in plasmas in the universe. It powers as diverse a phenomena set as disruptions in tokamaks, radiation storms in the Earth’s near space environment, solar eruptions, and a variety of astrophysical phenomena, including particle acceleration in pulsar magnetospheres. The near-Earth space environment offers a unique opportunity to understand the physical mechanisms behind the magnetic reconnection process. This opportunity is being exploited by a NASA flagship mission, the Magnetospheric Multiscale mission (MMS), which, combined with concurrent theory and modeling, has revolutionized our understanding of this process. This presentation will combine a general introduction to the reconnection process with a discussion of its physical underpinnings and of the knowledge developed in recent years. The presentation will conclude with an outlook towards open question and knowledge applications.
recording: www.youtube.com/watch