This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
Magnetic reconnection plays a fundamental role in nearly all magnetized plasmas as it enables magnetic energy to be converted into high speed flows, and thermal energy. It allows the magnetic field lines to change topology in collisionless plasmas, and it thereby controls the spatial and temporal evolution of explosive phenomena such as solar flares, coronal mass ejections, magnetic substorms, and internal disruptions in fusion devices. Because of its strong impact on the plasma dynamics and because it occurs in so many varied environments, understanding the physics of magnetic reconnection is one of the most important topics in plasma physics. Reconnection often occurs in explosive bursts which on short time scales can release large amounts of energy. Despite numerous satellite missions dedicated to reconnection studies on the surface of the sun and in the Earth's magnetotail, and despite the intense theoretical research on the subject over the past decades, the trigger mechanism for fast reconnection is still poorly understood.
This project will develop an experimental exploration of magnetic reconnection. The plasma environment in the VTF (Versatile Toroidal Facility) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) provides a unique opportunity to experimentally study the spontaneous onset of collisionless reconnection. The controlled experiments in the VTF represent a unique opportunity to study the importance of 3D effects in the onset of reconnection. The spontaneous nature of reconnection in the VTF renders the research relevant to reconnection in astrophysical, geospace, and magnetically confined fusion experiments.
All theoretical teams will be given full access to the experimental results, which in principle will allow the testing of existing theoretical models, provide resolution to controversy, and stimulate new theoretical developments and understanding of the onset of magnetic reconnection. Results will be published in the refereed scientific literature. In addition, a series of lectures on reconnection will be offered to undergraduate and graduate students at MIT. These lectures will cover the fundamentals of magnetic reconnection with emphasis on laboratory research relevant to space physics and astrophysics. The VTF is a large basic plasma physics device which is operated by graduate and undergraduate students. It is an ideal facility for students to get immersed in state of the art research while learning the fundamental principles of plasma physics.
