Laboratory Observations of Hall Magnetic Field in Electron-Only Magnetic Reconnection With a Guide Field

Abstract

Recently, electron-only reconnection, in which there is no obvious ion bulk flow and ion heating, has been pervasively observed in the Earth's magnetosphere. In this Letter, we realize electron-only reconnection with a guide field in the Keda Linear Magnetized Plasma (KLMP) device. By measuring the magnetic field, we identify unambiguously a distorted quadrupolar structure of the magnetic field in the out-of-plane direction. At the same time, electrons are obviously heated in the current sheet with the half-width about 0.8 electron inertial length. The maximum velocity of the estimated electron flow in the reconnection plane is about eight Alfvén speed.