Magnetic field annihilation and charged particle acceleration in ultra-relativistic laser plasmas

Abstract

Magnetic reconnection driven by laser plasma interactions attracts great interests in the recent decades. Motivated by the rapid development of the laser technology, the ultra strong magnetic field generated by the laser-plasma accelerated electrons provides unique environment to investigate the relativistic magnetic field annihilation and reconnection. It opens a new way for understanding relativistic regimes of fast magnetic field dissipation particularly in space plasmas, where the large scale magnetic field energy is converted to the energy of the nonthermal charged particles. Here we review the recent results in relativistic magnetic reconnection based on the laser and collisionless plasma interactions. The basic mechanism and the theoretical model are discussed. Several proposed experimental setups for relativistic reconnection research are presented.