Abstract Details

Name: Abhishek Kumar Srivastava
Affiliation: Indian Institute of Technology (BHU)
Conference ID: ASI2021_484
Title : On the Forced Magnetic Reconnection in the Solar Corona
Authors and Co-Authors : A.K. Srivastava and Sudheer K. Mishra (Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology (BHU), Varanasi-221005, India)
Abstract Type : Poster
Abstract Category : Sun and the Solar System
Abstract : In the astrophysical plasma, the reconnection is defined as a self-reorganisation of the magnetic fields in their relaxed state and associated release of the stored magnetic energy. In the solar corona, the magnetic reconnection is considered to be one of the major candidates to heat its atmosphere locally, and also to generate the eruptive phenomena (e.g., flares and coronal mass ejections). However, some major scientific aspects of this spontaneous magnetic reconnection are still debated despite significant scientific progress both in theory and observations since last several decades. The few we can delineate specifically that are required to be understood in greater details, e.g., the formation mechanism of the current sheet; appropriate reconnection rate; establishment of the natural diffusion region and its physical properties, etc. During inquisition of the crucial physical aspects of the magnetic reconnection, we firstly directly observed “the forced magnetic reconnection” in the large-scale solar corona. It is triggered in the corona when two oppositely directed magnetic field lines forming an X-point and/or current-sheet are clearly perturbed (or pushed) by the external disturbances. The forced reconnection was only reported hitherto in theory, however, it had never been directly observed in the Sun's large-scale corona. Our observations of the forced reconnection regions and corresponding numerical model elucidate that it can rapidly and efficiently occur at higher rates in the solar corona to heat it locally. We conjecture that the forced magnetic reconnection has an ample physical implications in the magnetised plasmas at diverse scales including the laboratory scales.