- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine

Physical Review Research

Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Letter
  • Open Access

Kinetic simulations underestimate the effects of waves during magnetic reconnection

J. Ng1,2, J. Yoo3, L.-J. Chen2, N. Bessho1,2, and H. Ji3

PDF

Phys. Rev. Research 6, L042072 – Published 30 December, 2024

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.6.L042072

Abstract

Collisionless plasma systems are often studied using fully kinetic simulations, where protons and electrons are treated as particles. Due to their computational expense, it is necessary to reduce the ion-to-electron mass ratio mi/me or the ratio between plasma and cyclotron frequencies in simulations of large systems. In this Letter we show that when electron-scale waves are present in larger-scale systems, numerical parameters affect their amplitudes and effects on the larger system. Using lower-hybrid drift waves during magnetic reconnection as an example, we find that the ratio between the wave electric field and the reconnection electric field scales as mi/me, while the phase relationship is also affected. The combination of these effects means that the anomalous drag that contributes to momentum balance in the reconnection region can be underestimated by an order of magnitude. The results are relevant to the coupling of electron-scale waves to ion-scale reconnection regions, and other systems such as collisionless shocks.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

References (52)

  1. D. B. Graham, Yu V. Khotyaintsev, M. André, A. Vaivads, A. Chasapis, W. H. Matthaeus, A. Retinò, F. Valentini, and D. J. Gershman, Non-Maxwellianity of electron distributions near Earth's magnetopause, J. Geophys. Res.: Space Phys. 126, e2021JA029260 (2021).
  2. P. Shi, P. Srivastav, M. H. Barbhuiya, P. A. Cassak, E. E. Scime, and M. Swisdak, Laboratory observations of electron heating and non-Maxwellian distributions at the kinetic scale during electron-only magnetic reconnection, Phys. Rev. Lett. 128, 025002 (2022).
  3. J. L. Burch and T. D. Phan, Magnetic reconnection at the dayside magnetopause: Advances with MMS, Geophys. Res. Lett. 43, 8327 (2016).
  4. S. Raptis, T. Karlsson, A. Vaivads, M. Lindberg, A. Johlander, and H. Trollvik, On magnetosheath jet kinetic structure and plasma properties, Geophys. Res. Lett. 49, e2022GL100678 (2022).
  5. M. Maksimovic, I. Zouganelis, J.-Y. Chaufray, K. Issautier, E. E. Scime, J. E. Littleton, E. Marsch, D. J. McComas, C. Salem, R. P. Lin, and H. Elliott, Radial evolution of the electron distribution functions in the fast solar wind between 0.3 and 1.5 AU, J. Geophys. Res.: Space Phys. 110, A09104, (2005).
  6. A. A. Schekochihin, S. C. Cowley, R. M. Kulsrud, G. W. Hammett, and P. Sharma, Plasma instabilities and magnetic field growth in clusters of galaxies, Astrophys. J. 629, 139 (2005).
  7. K. J. Bowers, B. J. Albright, L. Yin, B. Bergen, and T. J. T. Kwan, Ultrahigh performance three-dimensional electromagnetic relativistic kinetic plasma simulation, Phys. Plasmas 15, 055703 (2008).
  8. S. Markidis, G. Lapenta, and Rizwan-uddin, Multi-scale simulations of plasma with iPIC3D, Math. Comput. Simul. 80, 1509 (2010).
  9. R. A. Fonseca, L. O. Silva, F. S. Tsung, V. K. Decyk, W. Lu, C. Ren, W. B. Mori, S. Deng, S. Lee, T. Katsouleas et al., Osiris: A three-dimensional, fully relativistic particle in cell code for modeling plasma based accelerators, in Computational Science–ICCS 2002, edited by P. M. A. Sloot, A. G. Hoekstra, C. J. K. Tan, and J. J. Dongarra, Lecture Notes in Computer Science Vol. 2331 (Springer, Berlin, 2002), pp. 342–351.
  10. K. Fujimoto, Multi-scale kinetic simulation of magnetic reconnection with dynamically adaptive meshes, Front. Phys. 6, 119 (2018).
  11. J. Juno, A. Hakim, J. TenBarge, E. Shi, and W. Dorland, Discontinuous Galerkin algorithms for fully kinetic plasmas, J. Comput. Phys. 353, 110 (2018).
  12. J. Egedal, W. Daughton, and A. Le, Large-scale electron acceleration by parallel electric fields during magnetic reconnection, Nat. Phys. 8, 321 (2012).
  13. A. Le, W. Daughton, L.-J. Chen, and J. Egedal, Enhanced electron mixing and heating in 3-D asymmetric reconnection at the Earth's magnetopause, Geophys. Res. Lett. 44, 2096 (2017).
  14. L. Price, M. Swisdak, J. F. Drake, and D. B. Graham, Turbulence and transport during guide field reconnection at the magnetopause, J. Geophys. Res.: Space Phys. 125, e2019JA027498 (2020).
  15. G. Lapenta, F. Pucci, V. Olshevsky, S. Servidio, L. Sorriso-Valvo, D. L. Newman, and M. V. Goldman, Nonlinear waves and instabilities leading to secondary reconnection in reconnection outflows, J. Plasma Phys. 84, 715840103 (2018).
  16. Q. Lu, A. Guo, Z. Yang, R. Wang, S. Lu, R. Chen, and X. Gao, Upstream plasma waves and downstream magnetic reconnection at a reforming quasi-parallel shock, Astrophys. J. 964, 33 (2024).
  17. P. Savoini and B. Lembège, Production of nongyrotropic and gyrotropic backstreaming ion distributions in the quasi-perpendicular ion foreshock region, J. Geophys. Res.: Space Phys. 120, 7154 (2015).
  18. N. Bessho, L.-J. Chen, J. E. Stawarz, S. Wang, M. Hesse, L. B. Wilson, and J. Ng, Strong reconnection electric fields in shock-driven turbulence, Phys. Plasmas 29, 042304 (2022).
  19. S. R. Totorica and A. Bhattacharjee, Interplay of three-dimensional instabilities and magnetic reconnection in the explosive onset of magnetospheric substorms, Geophys. Res. Lett. 50, e2023GL105785 (2023).
  20. Y.-H. Liu, J. Birn, W. Daughton, M. Hesse, and K. Schindler, Onset of reconnection in the near magnetotail: PIC simulations, J. Geophys. Res.: Space Phys. 119, 9773 (2014).
  21. L. Comisso and A. Bhattacharjee, On the value of the reconnection rate, J. Plasma Phys. 82, 595820601 (2016).
  22. J. Birn, J. F. Drake, M. A. Shay, B. N. Rogers, R. E. Denton, M. Hesse, M. Kuznetsova, Z. W. Ma, A. Bhattacharjee, A. Otto, and P. L. Pritchett, Geospace environmental modeling (GEM) magnetic reconnection challenge, J. Geophys. Res.: Space Phys. 106, 3715 (2001).
  23. P. A. Cassak, Y.-H. Liu, and M. A. Shay, A review of the 0.1 reconnection rate problem, J. Plasma Phys. 83, 715830501 (2017).
  24. A. Le, J. Egedal, O. Ohia, W. Daughton, H. Karimabadi, and V. S. Lukin, Regimes of the electron diffusion region in magnetic reconnection, Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 135004 (2013).
  25. J. Jara-Almonte, W. Daughton, and H. Ji, Debye scale turbulence within the electron diffusion layer during magnetic reconnection, Phys. Plasmas 21, 032114 (2014).
  26. W. Daughton, Kinetic theory of the drift kink instability in a current sheet, J. Geophys. Res.: Space Phys. 103, 29429 (1998).
  27. L. B. Wilson III, L.-J. Chen, and V. Roytershteyn, The discrepancy between simulation and observation of electric fields in collisionless shocks, Front. Astron. Space Sci. 7, 592634 (2021).
  28. A. Bohdan, A. Tran, L. Sironi, and L. B. Wilson, III, Electrostatic waves and electron holes in simulations of low-Mach quasi-perpendicular shocks, Astrophys. J 974, 37 (2024).
  29. R. C. Davidson, N. T. Gladd, C. S. Wu, and J. D. Huba, Effects of finite plasma beta on the lower-hybrid-drift instability, Phys. Fluids 20, 301 (1977).
  30. J. D. Huba and C. S. Wu, Effects of a magnetic field gradient on the lower hydrid drift instability, Phys. Fluids 19, 988 (1976).
  31. N. A. Krall and P. C. Liewer, Low-frequency instabilities in magnetic pulses, Phys. Rev. A 4, 2094 (1971).
  32. R. C. Davidson and N. T. Gladd, Anomalous transport properties associated with the lower-hybrid-drift instability, Phys. Fluids 18, 1327 (1975).
  33. D. B. Graham, Yu. V. Khotyaintsev, M. André, A. Vaivads, A. Divin, J. F. Drake, C. Norgren, O. Le Contel, P.-A. Lindqvist, A. C. Rager et al., Direct observations of anomalous resistivity and diffusion in collisionless plasma, Nat. Commun. 13, 2954 (2022).
  34. F. S. Mozer, M. Wilber, and J. F. Drake, Wave associated anomalous drag during magnetic field reconnection, Phys. Plasmas 18, 102902 (2011).
  35. J. Yoo, J. Ng, H. Ji, S. Bose, A. Goodman, A. Alt, L.-J. Chen, P. Shi, and M. Yamada, Anomalous resistivity and electron heating by lower hybrid drift waves during magnetic reconnection with a guide field, Phys. Rev. Lett. 132, 145101 (2024).
  36. L.-J. Chen, S. Wang, O. Le Contel, A. Rager, M. Hesse, J. Drake, J. Dorelli, J. Ng, N. Bessho, D. Graham, L. B. Wilson III, T. Moore, B. Giles, W. Paterson, B. Lavraud, K. Genestreti, R. Nakamura, Yu. V. Khotyaintsev, R. E. Ergun, R. B. Torbert et al., Lower-hybrid drift waves driving electron nongyrotropic heating and vortical flows in a magnetic reconnection layer, Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 025103 (2020).
  37. A. Le, W. Daughton, O. Ohia, L.-J. Chen, Y.-H. Liu, S. Wang, W. D. Nystrom, and R. Bird, Drift turbulence, particle transport, and anomalous dissipation at the reconnecting magnetopause, Phys. Plasmas 25, 062103 (2018).
  38. W. Daughton, Electromagnetic properties of the lower-hybrid drift instability in a thin current sheet, Phys. Plasmas 10, 3103 (2003).
  39. V. Roytershteyn, W. Daughton, H. Karimabadi, and F. S. Mozer, Influence of the lower-hybrid drift instability on magnetic reconnection in asymmetric configurations, Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 185001 (2012).
  40. L. Price, M. Swisdak, J. F. Drake, P. A. Cassak, J. T. Dahlin, and R. E. Ergun, The effects of turbulence on three-dimensional magnetic reconnection at the magnetopause, Geophys. Res. Lett. 43, 6020 (2016).
  41. D. Winske and P. C. Liewer, Particle simulation studies of the lower hybrid drift instability, Phys. Fluids 21, 1017 (1978).
  42. J. Ng, J. Yoo, L.-J. Chen, N. Bessho, and H. Ji, 3D simulation of lower-hybrid drift waves in strong guide field asymmetric reconnection in laboratory experiments, Phys. Plasmas 30, 042101 (2023).
  43. J. Ng, L.-J. Chen, A. Le, A. Stanier, S. Wang, and N. Bessho, Lower-hybrid-drift vortices in the electron-scale magnetic reconnection layer, Geophys. Res. Lett. 47, e2020GL090726 (2020).
  44. J. U. Brackbill, D. W. Forslund, K. B. Quest, and D. Winske, Nonlinear evolution of the lower-hybrid drift instability, Phys. Fluids 27, 2682 (1984).
  45. F. Lavorenti, P. Henri, F. Califano, S. Aizawa, and N. André, Electron acceleration driven by the lower-hybrid-drift instability: An extended quasilinear model, Astron. Astrophys. 652, A20 (2021).
  46. H. Karimabadi, W. Daughton, and J. Scudder, Multi-scale structure of the electron diffusion region, Geophys. Res. Lett. 34, 2007GL030306 (2007).
  47. D. W. Hewett, C. W. Nielson, and D. Winske, Vlasov confinement equilibria in one dimension, Phys. Fluids 19, 443 (1976).
  48. J. D. Huba, N. T. Gladd, and K. Papadopoulos, Lower-hybrid-drift wave turbulence in the distant magnetotail, J. Geophys. Res.: Space Phys. 83, 5217 (1978).
  49. A. T. Marshall, J. L. Burch, P. H. Reiff, J. M. Webster, R. E. Denton, L. Rastaetter, R. B. Torbert, R. E. Ergun, C. T. Russell, and D. J. Gershman, Lower hybrid drift wave motion at a dayside magnetopause x-line with energy conversion dominated by a parallel electric field, Phys. Plasmas 29, 012905 (2022).
  50. I. H. Cairns and B. F. McMillan, Electron acceleration by lower hybrid waves in magnetic reconnection regions, Phys. Plasmas 12, 102110 (2005).
  51. E. Harris, On a plasma sheath separating regions of oppositely directed magnetic field, Nuovo Cimento 23, 115 (1962).
  52. S. Wang, L.-J. Chen, N. Bessho, J. Ng, M. Hesse, D. B. Graham, O. Le Contel, D. Gershman, and B. Giles, Lower-hybrid wave structures and interactions with electrons observed in magnetotail reconnection diffusion regions, J. Geophys. Res.: Space Phys. 127, e2021JA030109 (2022).

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. Research 6, L042072– Published 30 December, 2024
  • Received 10 July 2024
  • Revised 24 October 2024
  • Accepted 7 December 2024
Crossmark - Check for updates button
Creative Commons Logo

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation