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Magnetic field annihilation and reconnection driven by femtosecond lasers in inhomogeneous plasma

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Abstract

The process of fast magnetic reconnection driven by intense ultra-short laser pulses in underdense plasma is investigated by particle-in-cell simulations. In the wakefield of such laser pulses, quasi-static magnetic fields at a few mega-Gauss are generated due to nonvanishing cross product ∆(n /γ) × p. Excited in an inhomogeneous plasma of decreasing density, the quasi-static magnetic field structure is shown to drift quickly both in lateral and longitudinal directions. When two parallel-propagating laser pulses with close focal spot separation are used, such field drifts can develop into magnetic reconnection (annihilation) in their overlapping region, resulting in the conversion of magnetic energy to kinetic energy of particles. The reconnection rate is found to be much higher than the value obtained in the Hall magnetic reconnection model. Our work proposes a potential way to study magnetic reconnection-related physics with short-pulse lasers of terawatt peak power only.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory for Laser Plasmas (Ministry of Education) and School of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China

    YouYuan Wang, Min Chen, SuMing Weng, ZhengMing Sheng & Jie Zhang

  2. Collaborative Innovation Center of IFSA (CICIFSA), Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China

    YouYuan Wang, Min Chen, SuMing Weng, QuanLi Dong, ZhengMing Sheng & Jie Zhang

  3. Scottish Universities Physics Alliance (SUPA), Department of Physics, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, G4 0NG, UK

    FeiYu Li & ZhengMing Sheng

  4. Key Lab of Geospace Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Department of Geophysics and Planetary Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, China

    QuanMing Lu

  5. School of Physics and Optoelectronic Engineering, Ludong University, Yantai, 264025, China

    QuanLi Dong

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  1. YouYuan Wang
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  2. FeiYu Li
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  3. Min Chen
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  4. SuMing Weng
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  5. QuanMing Lu
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  7. ZhengMing Sheng
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  8. Jie Zhang
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Correspondence to ZhengMing Sheng.

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Wang, Y., Li, F., Chen, M. et al. Magnetic field annihilation and reconnection driven by femtosecond lasers in inhomogeneous plasma. Sci. China Phys. Mech. Astron. 60, 115211 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11433-017-9086-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11433-017-9086-9

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