The 0.1 reconnection rate problem refers to the rate of reconnection normalized to ambient plasma parameters near where reconnection is occurring, which has been found to be remarkably similar for a wide range of plasma conditions. A rate of 0.1 is consistent with explosive energy release in solar flares and during substorms in the Earth's magnetotail. I will review some of the key simulation...
Energy release in solar flares is governed by fast magnetic reconnection taking place in the corona. Energy flux streams down along reconnecting field lines to the chromosphere, producing flare ribbons or kernels of impulsively enhanced optical, ultraviolet, and hard X-ray emissions. Therefore, reconnection and energy release events in the Sun's corona can be mapped, tracked, and measured with...
In magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), magnetic reconnection has long been discussed by Sweet-Parker (S-P) and Petschek models. It was recently found that a laminar S-P reconnection evolves to plasmoid-dominated turbulent reconnection in a large-scale system. The reconnection rate during the plasmoid-dominated stage is known to be 0.01, regardless of other parameters. Plasma $\beta$ in the inflow...
Coronal mass ejections, jets, prominence eruptions: solar eruptions are an active field with a broad range of accepted phenomena, and an even broader range of proposed mechanisms that cause the phenomena. This talk reports the observations of an event that connects the major eruption classes, and could provide a holistic explanation for all of them. The event originated in a filament channel...
The physical picture of interacting magnetic islands (or flux tubes in 3D) provides a useful paradigm for certain plasma dynamics in a variety of physical environments, such as the solar corona, the heliosheath, and the Earth's magnetosphere. The successive coalescence of magnetic islands via magnetic reconnection leads to robust dissipation of magnetic energy. Meanwhile, the length scale of...
