"A New Method for the Simulation of Electron and Ion Acceleration during Magnetic Reconnection in Macroscale Systems"

by Zhiyu Yin

Friday, November 18, 2022 -- 12:00 p.m.
Large Conference Room, 1207 Energy Research Facility

Advisor:  Professor James Drake and Dr. Marc Swisdak

The production of nonthermal particles during magnetic reconnection is controlled by Fermi acceleration in macroscale magnetic fields and does not depend on kinetic-scale boundary layers. A new computational model, kglobal, based on this observation demonstrated the self-consistent production of power laws in electrons that extended more than two decades in energy. Here we report the development of “extended kglobal” which self-consistently includes non-thermal ions and electrons. The electron energy distribution includes a power law and is very similar to that in the original kglobal. The spectra of the energetic ions are more complex although nonthermal particles again extend over nearly three decades in energy. When the guide field is weak, the total energy of the nonthermal ions significantly exceeds that in the hot thermal population even though their number density is smaller. Our results can be used to explore the spectra of energetic ions produced during magnetic reconnection and compare them to observations.

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