Topological Analysis of Magnetic Reconnection in Kinetic Plasma Simulations



Divya Banesh, Li-Ta Lo, Patrick Kilian, Fan Guo, Bernd Hamann

 External link (DOI) 

 View presentation:2020-10-27T18:00:00ZGMT-0600Change your timezone on the schedule page
2020-10-27T18:00:00Z

Exemplar figure — Magnetic reconnection is a ubiquitous plasma process in which oppositely directed magnetic field lines break and rejoin, resulting in a change of the magnetic field topology. Reconnection generates magnetic islands: regions enclosed by magnetic field lines and separated by reconnection points. Proper identification of these features is important to understand particle acceleration and overall behavior of plasma. We present a contour-tree based visualization for robust and objective identification of islands and reconnection points in two-dimensional (2D) magnetic reconnection simulations.

Fast forward

Direct link to video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/LymDhtmP4WU

Keywords

Human-centered computing-Visualization-Visu-alization techniques-Treemaps, Human-centered computing-Visualization-Visualization design and evaluation methods

Abstract

Magnetic reconnection is a ubiquitous plasma process in which oppositely directed magnetic field lines break and rejoin, resulting in a change of the magnetic field topology. Reconnection generates magnetic islands: regions enclosed by magnetic field lines and separated by reconnection points. Proper identification of these features is important to understand particle acceleration and overall behavior of plasma. We present a contour-tree based visualization for robust and objective identification of islands and reconnection points in two-dimensional (2D) magnetic reconnection simulations. The application of this visualization to a simple simulation has revealed a physical phenomenon previously not reported, resulting in a more comprehensive understanding of magnetic reconnection.