Watch: Apr.7 LU San: Onset of magnetotail reconnection: Theory, simulations, and spacecraft observations | Space Science Bazaar
Apr. 7, 2022
4 pm GMT+8
Magnetic reconnection in Earth’s magnetotail plays a crucial role in the most important explosive phenomena in Earth’s magnetosphere, storms and substorms, which involve a sudden transition from a quiescent state to a rapid energy release. How this transition begins, i.e., the onset of magnetotail reconnection, however, has been a long-standing conundrum. I will talk about the theoretical and simulation efforts in the past 50 years devoted to explaining the onset of magnetotail reconnection, which have led to several distinct, evolutionary mechanisms. I will also talk about spacecraft observations as experimental evidence for these mechanisms.
About the Speaker
Prof. Lu received his bachelor’s degree and PhD in space physics from University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in 2009 and 2014, respectively. After that he worked as a postdoc at USTC from 2014 to 2015 and as an Assistant Researcher at UCLA from 2015 to 2021. From 2021, he went back to USTC as a Specially-Appointed Professor at USTC. Prof. Lu’s current research aims to understand magnetic reconnection and its related structure and processes in space plasmas.
