Magnetic Reconnection in Solar Flares and the Near-Sun Solar Wind
Abstract An overview is presented of our current understanding and open questions related to magnetic reconnection in solar flares and the near-sun (within around 20 $R_{s}$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msub> <mml:mi>R</mml:mi> <mml:mi>s</mml:mi> </mml:msub> </mml:math> ) solar wind. The solar-flare-related topics include the mechanisms that facilitate fast energy release and that control flare onset, electron energization, ion energization and abundance enhancement, electron and ion transport, and flare-driven heating. Recent observations and models suggesting that interchange reconnection of multipolar magnetic fields within coronal holes could provide the energy required to drive the fast solar wind are also discussed. Recent in situ observations that reconnection in the heliospheric current sheet close to the sun drives energetic ions are also presented. The implications of in situ observations of reconnection in the Earth space environment for understanding flares are highlighted. Finally, the impact of emerging computational and observational tools for understanding flare dynamics are discussed.
Authors
- J. F. Drake (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9150-1841)
- M. Hoshino (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1818-9927)
- M. Swisdak (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5435-3544)
- Katharine K. Reeves (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6903-6832)
- M. Oka (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2191-1025)
- C. M. S. Cohen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0978-8127)
- S. K. Antiochos (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0176-4312)
- Lindsay Glesener (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7092-2703)
- Stuart D. Bale (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1989-3596)
- T. D. Phan
- Joel Dahlin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9493-4730)
- Shinsuke Imada (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7891-3916)
- Bin Chen
- Fan Guo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4315-3755)
Institutions
- New Jersey Institute of Technology (US)
- California Institute of Technology (US)
- University of Minnesota (US)
- Goddard Space Flight Center (US)
- Los Alamos National Laboratory (US)
- Heliophysics (US)
- Joint Space Science Institute (US)
- Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian (US)
- Heliophysics Science Division (US)
- University of Maryland, College Park (US)
- The University of Tokyo (JP)
- University of California, Berkeley (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Space Science Reviews
- Published
- 2025-03-01
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-025-01153-x
- Citations
- 16
- Primary Topic
- Solar and Space Plasma Dynamics
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 18.48
Funders
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- University of Tokyo