Progress of the Three-dimensional Torsional Magnetic Reconnection Experiment

Three-dimensional torsional magnetic reconnection (TMR) is a widely unexplored area of fundamental plasma science. TMR in the solar atmosphere is associated with high-energy directed solar coronal jets and contributions to the solar wind budget. This DOE-enabled collaboration with the University of Alabama at Huntsville (UAH) is focused on operating the first TMR experiment to demonstrate laboratory-scale directed plasma jets with applications to spacecraft propulsion and fusion energy science. Forming collimated, high-speed (~100s km/s) plasma jets along open magnetic field lines is enabled by multi-kV/kA level solid-state switching and a plasma diagnostics suite. SpaceWave, LLC will work with UAH to deploy the individual enabling components for constructing the TMR experiment, including 3D fan-spine magnetic field topology coils, coaxial plasma gun (CPG) specifications, custom high-power solid-state switching, monitoring of multi-circuit simultaneity, laser interferometry, photodiode array gating, Bdot probes, plasma imaging, and optical emission spectroscopy. Complementary modeling efforts include UAH-led smoothed particle hydrodynamics and relativistic particle tracking methods to understand the onset of 3D TMR and enable the diagnosing of current sheet formation and magnetic field line annihilation within the reconnection region.