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| 04/30/02
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Belmont Gerard |
CETP |
| 10-12 avenue de l'Europe | PNST- |
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78140 |
Velizy, FRANCE |
Presentation 1 : Oral
Collisionless reconnection: what we learn from magnetospheric in-situ measurements
Gerard BELMONT
Reconnection is supposed to play a major role in solar corona and, beyond it, in any stellar corona. This phenomenon allows 1) the magnetic field to get drastic changes in its topology (detachment of flares, CMEs,…), and 2) the energy to convert from magnetic to kinetic (particle and flow acceleration). Indirectly, reconnection may be responsible for the heating of the coronae, which still remains unexplained. As long as some of these phenomena are likely to take place on scales smaller than the collision scales, the relevant theories to understand them should therefore be those of collisionless reconnection. In this field, the experience provided by the magnetospheric studies can prove to be valuable, since many spacecraft have been devoted to this goal, allowing in-situ measurements. I will therefore try to show what are the main clues that can be drawn from the magnetospheric example.