The Interplay Between Collisionless Magnetic Reconnection and Turbulence

TL;DR

This paper reviews how magnetic reconnection and turbulence interact in collisionless space plasmas, highlighting recent observational, theoretical, and numerical advances, especially from NASA's MMS mission in Earth's magnetosphere.

Contribution

It synthesizes current understanding of turbulence-reconnection interplay in collisionless plasmas, emphasizing recent high-resolution observations and diverse interaction mechanisms.

Findings

Turbulence can generate current sheets that undergo magnetic reconnection.

Magnetic reconnection can drive turbulent dynamics in plasma environments.

Stochastic reconnection arises from magnetic field line diffusion in turbulence.

Abstract

Alongside magnetic reconnection, turbulence is another fundamental nonlinear plasma phenomenon that plays a key role in energy transport and conversion in space and astrophysical plasmas. From a numerical, theoretical, and observational point of view there is a long history of exploring the interplay between these two phenomena in space plasma environments; however, recent high-resolution, multi-spacecraft observations have ushered in a new era of understanding this complex topic. The interplay between reconnection and turbulence is both complex and multifaceted, and can be viewed through a number of different interrelated lenses - including turbulence acting to generate current sheets that undergo magnetic reconnection (turbulence-driven reconnection), magnetic reconnection driving turbulent dynamics in an environment (reconnection-driven turbulence) or acting as an intermediate step in the excitation of turbulence, and the random diffusive/dispersive nature of magnetic field lines embedded in turbulent fluctuations enabling so-called stochastic reconnection. In this paper, we review the current state of knowledge on these different facets of the interplay between turbulence and reconnection in the context of collisionless plasmas, such as those found in many near-Earth astrophysical environments, from a theoretical, numerical, and observational perspective. Particular focus is given to several key regions in Earth's magnetosphere - Earth's magnetosheath, magnetotail, and Kelvin-Helmholtz vortices on the magnetopause flanks - where NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale mission has been providing new insights on the topic.