Simulating Magnetic Reconnection Experiment (MRX) with a Guide Field using Fluid Code, HiFi

Magnetic reconnection is a phenomenon that occurs in plasmas when magnetic field lines effectively ``break'' and reconnect resulting in a different topological configuration. In this process, energy that was once stored in the magnetic field is transfered into the thermal velocity of the particles, effectively heating the plasma. MRX at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory creates the conditions under which reconnection can occur by initially ramping the current in two adjacent coils and then rapidly decreasing with and without a guide magnetic field along the reconnecting current. We simulate this experiment using a fluid code called HiFi, an implicit and adaptive high order spectral element modeling framework, and compare our results to experimental data from MRX. The purpose is to identify physics behind the observed reconnection process for the field line break and the resultant plasma heating.