Magnetic reconnection: past, present, and future
Magnetic reconnection is considered as one of most fundamental plasma processes across the Universe responsible for explosive release of magnetic energy to particles. It plays a pivotal role in electron and ion heating, particle acceleration to high energies, energy transport, and self-organization. The relevant phenomena range from solar flares, coronal heating, solar wind interactions with planets’ magnetospheres including Earth’s, star formation in molecular clouds, to explosions on magnetars and pulsars including Crab Nebula, as well as to disruptive phenomena in laboratory fusion plasmas. This talk concisely reviews the history of magnetic reconnection research starting from solar flares since 1950s and summarizes the status of our current understanding. A future outlook on solving the reconnection problem, including the role of newly operating FLARE (Facility for Laboratory Reconnection Experiments) facility and high-power lasers, will be discussed.
Bio: Hantao Ji obtained his doctoral degree in physics from the University of Tokyo in 1990 and subsequently worked at the National Institute for Fusion Science (Japan) and the University of Wisconsin-Madison before joining Princeton. Professor Ji’s main contributions include experimental research on fundamental physical processes important to both laboratory and astrophysical plasmas, including dynamo effects, magnetic reconnection, magnetic helicity conservation, and magnetorotational instability. His major awards include the Award for Excellence in Plasma Physics Research from the American Physical Society (2002), the Kaul Prize for Excellence in Plasma Physics Research and Technology Development from Princeton University (2003), the Edison Patent Award from the New Jersey R&D Council (2022), and the John Dawson Award for Excellence in Plasma Physics Research (2025). Ji was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2004. He is the Princeton Investigator for the Facility for Laboratory Reconnection Experiments (FLARE) at PPPL, a U.S. Department of Energy collaborative research facility.