Energetic Electron Generation During Electron-Only Reconnection

A regime of reconnection, called electron-only reconnection since there is insufficient time or space for ions to couple with reconnection structures, provides an opportunity to study electron heating mechanisms more directly than in fully ion-coupled reconnection. Electron-only reconnection is thought to be important for energy dissipation at kinetic scales in Earth’s turbulent magnetosheath, bow shock and the quiet magnetotail. Recent simulations of turbulent near-Sun plasmas suggest that electron-only reconnection with a large guide field plays a key role in the dissipation of turbulent energy at the kinetic scale and results in parallel, i.e. anisotropic, electron heating.