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Key Challenges: Complete understanding of reconnection: how magnetic fields change topology and convert magnetic energy to kinetic and thermal energy.
Why it matters: Has broad importance in space (e.g. solar flares), astrophysics, and fusion experiment plasmas.
Accomplishments:
Provided explanation for surprising Voyager 1 & 2 spacecraft observation of Anomalous Cosmic Rays (ACRs: ions with energies just below galactic cosmic rays).
Required both magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) and particle-in-cell (PIC) methods.
Drake is 2010 winner of APS Maxwell Award for Plasma Physics.
