Fast magnetic reconnection with anomalous ion heating and its application

Abstract

Magnetic reconnection of two toroidal plasmas with the third field component Bx parallel to the X-lines revealed a clear dependence of sheet-current resistivity and ion heating energy on the sheet-width normalized by the ion gyroradius. Initially, the effective resistivity of sheet-current stayed constant, but it increased significantly when the sheet was compressed shorter than the ion-gyroradius. The anomalous current-sheet dissipation was followed by large increase in ion outflow velocity and ion temperature. This anomalous effect caused both the reconnection speed and the ion heating energy to increase with external compression force and inversely with the Bx component. These properties of reconnection lead us to a new controlled plasma heating for various fusion plasmas and other industrial plasmas.