Speaker
Description
Magnetic reconnection is a fundamental process in astrophysical plasmas, influencing the dynamics, heating, and acceleration of particles in protostellar jets. This process often involves the conversion of magnetic energy into thermal and kinetic energy. In particular, the non-Maxwellian nature of astrophysical plasmas, necessitates the use of more accurate kinetic models to capture the plasma behavior. In this work, we develop a hybrid MHD-kinetic computational framework based on the PLUTO code, incorporating a Vlasov solver based on regularized kappa distribution to describe particle populations.
This method can simulate macroscopic jet structures and microscopic kinetic processes in one frame, such as energy dissipation, particle acceleration, and non-Maxwellian pressure changes. The regularized kappa distribution improves the accuracy of the plasma description, resulting in clearer modelling of heating processes in reconnection zones. Preliminary studies using the kinetic-MHD method suggest that the MHD-Vlasov framework offers valuable insights into magnetic dissipation, plasma heating, and jet propagation when applied to stellar jets in astrophysical environments.
