Plasma heating during turbulent kinetic magnetic reconnection in two dimensions.*

The magnetic reconnection process and associated heating of plasma may be altered by the existence of background plasma turbulence. To study the effects of turbulence on magnetic reconnection, we have developed a method of driving turbulence by adding random forcing in gyrokinetic simulations. The developed method injects energy into the system at a constant rate. Without reconnection, a statistical steady state is achieved where the energy injection and the collisional dissipation balance.

We perform turbulent kinetic magnetic reconnection simulations, and discuss how turbulence affects the heating process during reconnection. A preliminary result shows a remarkable difference with the MHD results: In the gyrokinetic model, turbulence does not accelerate the reconnection process very much because kinetic reconnection is already fast. We estimate how much fraction of the initial magnetic energy is converted into heat via phase mixing [1] in kinetic plasmas, and compare it with and without turbulence.

[1] R. Numata and N. F. Loureiro, J. Plasma Phys. 81, 305810201 (2015).