The Role of Kinetic Instabilities and Waves in Collisionless Magnetic Reconnection
Review article, 2025
Magnetic reconnection converts magnetic field energy into particle energy by breaking and reconnecting magnetic field lines. Magnetic reconnection is a kinetic process that generates a wide variety of kinetic waves via wave-particle interactions. Kinetic waves have been proposed to play an important role in magnetic reconnection in collisionless plasmas by, for example, contributing to anomalous resistivity and diffusion, particle heating, and transfer of energy between different particle populations. These waves range from below the ion cyclotron frequency to above the electron plasma frequency and from ion kinetic scales down to electron Debye length scales. This review aims to describe the progress made in understanding the relationship between magnetic reconnection and kinetic waves. We focus on the waves in different parts of the reconnection region, namely, the diffusion region, separatrices, outflow regions, and jet fronts. Particular emphasis is placed on the recent observations from the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) spacecraft and numerical simulations, which have substantially increased the understanding of the interplay between kinetic waves and reconnection. Some of the ongoing questions related to waves and reconnection are discussed.
Magnetic reconnection
Kinetic processes
Waves
Instabilities
Methods
Author
D. B. Graham
The Swedish Institute of Space Physics
G. Cozzani
University of Helsinki
Yu. V. Khotyaintsev
Uppsala University
The Swedish Institute of Space Physics
V. D. Wilder
University of Texas at Arlington
J. C. Holmes
Los Alamos National Laboratory
T. K. M. Nakamura
Austrian Academy of Sciences
J. Buechner
Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research
Technische Universität Berlin
K. Dokgo
Southwest Research Institute
L. Richard
The Swedish Institute of Space Physics
Konrad Steinvall
Chalmers, Physics, Subatomic, High Energy and Plasma Physics
C. Norgren
University of Bergen
The Swedish Institute of Space Physics
L. -j. Chen
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
H. Ji
Princeton University
J. F. Drake
University of Maryland
J. E. Stawarz
Northumbria University
S. Eriksson
University of Colorado at Boulder
Space Science Reviews
0038-6308 (ISSN) 1572-9672 (eISSN)
Vol. 221 1 20Extreme Plasma Flares
Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation (2022.0087), 2023-07-01 -- 2028-06-30.
Subject Categories (SSIF 2025)
Fusion, Plasma and Space Physics
Astronomy, Astrophysics, and Cosmology
DOI
10.1007/s11214-024-01133-7