Magnetic reconnection in plasma under inertial confinement fusion conditions driven by heat flux effects in Ohm's law

TL;DR

This paper investigates how heat flux effects in Ohm's law can lead to magnetic reconnection in high-density plasma during inertial confinement fusion, affecting thermal transport and plasma dynamics.

Contribution

It demonstrates that heat flux-driven magnetic reconnection occurs in high-beta plasma, altering thermal transport and magnetic field evolution in laser-produced plasmas.

Findings

Reconnection mediated by heat fluxes can occur in high-beta plasma.

Reconnection rate is governed by heat flows, not Alfvénic flows.

Magnetic fields significantly modify thermal transport and ion dynamics.

Abstract

In the interaction of high-power laser beams with solid density plasma there are a number of mechanisms that generate strong magnetic fields. Such fields subsequently inhibit or redirect electron flows, but can themselves be advected by heat fluxes, resulting in complex interplay between thermal transport and magnetic fields.We show that for heating by multiple laser spots reconnection of magnetic field lines can occur, mediated by these heat fluxes, using a fully implicit 2D Vlasov-Fokker-Planck code. Under such conditions, the reconnection rate is dictated by heat flows rather than Alfv\`enic flows. We find that this mechanism is only relevant in a high $\beta$ plasma. However, the Hall parameter $\omega_c \tau_{ei}$ can be large so that thermal transport is strongly modified by these magnetic fields, which can impact longer time scale temperature homogeneity and ion dynamics in the system.