Schedule May 4, 1999
Aspects of Magnetic Reconnection
Dr. Eric Blackman, ITP & Caltech
Magnetic reconnection describes the environment in which magnetic energy is dissipated into a combination of flow and particle energy in the presence of a magnetic topology change. Here aspects of magnetic reconnection physics and its role in astrophysical sources (solar flares, AGN) are addressed. Ways to enhance the rate , the generalized relativistic rate, as well as the particle acceleration processes occuring in reconnection sites are presented. In general, nature seems to require fast reconnection speeds up to at least 0.1 V_A, but the energy conversion processes can vary widely from system to system. The presence or absence of slow shocks bounding inflows and outflows and turbulence and/or fast shocks in the outflows play a role in determining how the magnetic energy is dissipated into particles and flow energy. The presence or absence of these likely depend on the various inflow boundary conditions and inflow parameters. Solar flares provide a good example of this. Reconnection and its slow shocks are a likely candidate for direct X-ray emission in Seyfert coronae.
astro-ph/9704239, astro-ph/9512007, astro-ph/9410036, www.its.caltech.edu/~blackman

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