Mobile phone service and electrical power grids can be down due to solar flares and space storms caused by a process called magnetic reconnection. Scientists at the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory have a plan for unraveling a key aspect of the puzzle that could help understand the workings of the universe.
Reconnection converts the magnetic field energy to particle eruptions in astrophysical plasmas by snapping apart and expelling the magnetic field lines, which are often smaller than the regions they impact.
The magnetic field is stressed.
The first author of a paper that details the roadmap in Nature Reviews Physics said that magnetism doesn't like reconnection.
Dissipation scales are small, whereas astrophysical scales can extend for millions of miles. Finding a way to bridge these scales through a multiscale mechanism is a key to solving the reconnection puzzle.
The Facility for Laboratory Reconnection Experiment (FLARE), a recently installed collaborative facility that is being upgraded and will probe aspects of magnetic reconnection never before accessible to laboratory experiments, is one of the technologies outlined in the roadmap. The hope is that FLARE and exascale computing will go hand-in-hand.
Multiple plasmoids, or magnetic islands, that arise from reconnection along lengthy plasma current sheets could bridge the vast range of scales according to the working theory proposed by the PPPL. Multiscale laboratory experiments are planned to provide the first tests of this theory and to evaluate competing hypotheses.
The author of the paper said that the scale will allow them to do more credible simulations. The diameter of the new machine will be twice that of the MRX, which will enable scientists to replicate reconnection.
William Daughton is a computational scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory and a co-author of the paper.
The challenge is key.
New high-resolution diagnostic systems free from restrictive assumptions will be a key challenge in the coming experiments. These systems will allow FLARE to build upon the satellites that have been spotted, as well as a fleet of four satellites that were launched in 2015.
The paper said that progress in understanding multiscale physics depends on innovation and efficient implementation of such diagnostics systems. The new findings will address open questions.
How does reconnection start?
How are the particles heated and accelerated?
What role does reconnection play in turbulence and space shocks?
The paper lays out plans to provide the entire space physics and astrophysics communities with methods to solve the multiscale problem. It would be a major step towards a more complete understanding of magnetic reconnection in large systems.
More information: Hantao Ji et al, Magnetic reconnection in the era of exascale computing and multiscale experiments, Nature Reviews Physics (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s42254-021-00419-x Citation: A roadmap for deepening understanding of a puzzling universal process (2022, April 22) retrieved 22 April 2022 from https://phys.org/news/2022-04-roadmap-deepening-puzzling-universal.html This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
