Simulating Magnetic Reconnection in Partially Ionized Plasmas using Dedalus

Abstract:

Simulations of magnetic reconnection traditionally address only fully ionized plasmas such as in the solar corona. However, observations indicate that magnetic reconnetion also occurs in the weakly ionized chromosphere and the presence of neutral atoms substantially affects reconnection mechanisms. e.g., decoupling between neutrals and ions produces a reconnection rate much faster than the single fluid Sweet-Parker model (Leake et al. 2012).

Here, we implement a 2.5D multi-fluid model for reconnection of partially ionized plasmas using Dedalus (Burns et al. 2020). Dedalus is an open-source spectral method solver for partial differential equations and employs a user-friendly Python interface which parses systems of differential equations and their constraints from plain text symbolic inputs. Our goal for this work is to produce a flexible, adaptable model for chromospheric magnetic reconnection with a reduced barrier to entry for collaborations. This implementation of multi-fluid magnetic reconnection can also apply to a wider variety of partially ionized space or laboratory plasmas such as proto-planetary disks or edge plasmas in tokamaks.