Electromagnetic fluctuations during fast reconnection in a laboratory plasma.
Experimental evidence for a positive correlation is established between the magnitude of electromagnetic fluctuations up to the lower-hybrid frequency range and enhancement of reconnection rates in a well-controlled laboratory plasma. The fluctuations belong to the right-hand polarized whistler wave branch, propagating obliquely to the reconnecting magnetic field, with a phase velocity comparable to the relative drift velocity between electrons and ions. The measured short coherence lengths indicate their strongly nonlinear nature.
Ji
Hantao
H
Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, Princeton University, P.O. Box 451, Princeton, New Jersey 08543, USA.
Terry
Stephen
S
Yamada
Masaaki
M
Kulsrud
Russell
R
Kuritsyn
Aleksey
A
Ren
Yang
Y