Anisotropic Electron Heating in Turbulence-driven Magnetic Reconnection in the Near-Sun Solar Wind

We perform a high-resolution, 2D, fully kinetic numerical simulation of a turbulent plasma system with observation-driven conditions, in order to investigate the interplay between turbulence, magnetic reconnection, and particle heating from ion to subelectron scales in the near-Sun solar wind. We find that the power spectra of the turbulent plasma and electromagnetic fluctuations show multiple power-law intervals down to scales smaller than the electron gyroradius. Magnetic reconnection is observed to occur in correspondence of current sheets with a thickness of the order of the electron inertial length, which form and shrink owing to interacting ion-scale vortices. In some cases, both ion and electron outflows are observed (the classic reconnection scenario), while in others-typically for the shortest current sheets-only electron jets are present (electron-only reconnection). At the onset of reconnection, the electron temperature starts to increase and a strong parallel temperature anisotropy develops. This suggests that in strong turbulence electron-scale coherent structures may play a significant role for electron heating, as impulsive and localized phenomena such as magnetic reconnection can efficiently transfer energy from the electromagnetic fields to particles.

Automated summary

A high-resolution, 2D, fully kinetic numerical simulation was conducted to investigate the interplay between turbulence, magnetic reconnection, and particle heating in the near-Sun solar wind. The power spectra of the turbulent plasma and electromagnetic fluctuations show multiple power-law intervals down to scales smaller than the electron gyroradius. Magnetic reconnection was observed to occur in correspondence of current sheets with interacting ion-scale vortices, leading to electron heating with the presence of strong turbulence.