Joachim Birn

TL;DR: In this article, the authors considered the concept of magnetic reconnection from a general point of view, with special consideration given to magnetic reconnections in nonvanishing magnetic fields, and showed that the electric field component parallel to the magnetic field plays a crucial physical role in finite-B reconnection.

TL;DR: In this paper, the structure of the dissipation region in collisionless magnetic reconnection is investigated by means of kinetic particle-in-cell simulations and analytical theory, and the scale lengths of these processes are best organized by the trapping length of bouncing electrons in a field reversal region.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors propose an explanation for how field lines arise in terms of 3D reconnection close to the Sun, which provides a natural explanation for the flux rope topology characteristic of many CMEs as well as the coronal loops formed during long-duration, solar X-ray events.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigate the propagation of low-entropy magnetic flux tubes ("bubbles") in the magnetotail and find that the early evolution, after a sudden reduction of pressure and entropy on a localized flux tube, is governed by re-establishing the balance of the total pressure in the dawn-dusk and north-south directions through compression on a time scale less than about 20s for the typical magnetotails.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigate the fate of earthward bursty bulk flows (BBFs) generated by the severance of a plasmoid via magnetic reconnection and identify the flow bursts as entropy-depleted magnetic flux tubes (''bubbles'').