Biermann-Battery reconnection in 3-D colliding laser-driven plasmas*

Recent High Energy Density plasma experiments have demonstrated magnetic reconnection between colliding plasma plumes, where the reconnecting magnetic fields were self-generated in the plasma by the Biermann battery effect. Using fully kinetic 3-D simulations, we show the full evolution of the magnetic fields and plasma in these experiments including self-consistent magnetic field generation about each expanding plume and where the collision of the plumes drives the formation of a current sheet. We observe fast, vertically-localized Biermann-mediated reconnection, a new, inherently 3-D reconnection mechanism where the temperature profile in the current sheet coupled with the out-of-plane ablation density profile conspires to break inflowing field lines, reconnecting the field downstream [1]. We present a simple and general formulation to consider the relevance of Biermann-mediated reconnection in general astrophysical scenarios. In addition, we investigate particle energization due to reconnection within these highly 3-D systems and compare our results with those of 2-D HED reconnection studies.

1) J. Matteucci, W. Fox, A. Bhattacharjee, et al., (2018)  arXiv:1710.08556.

arXiv:1710.08556

arXiv:1710.08556