  Mini-magnetospheres are small ion-scale structures that are well-suited to
studying kinetic-scale physics of collisionless space plasmas. Such ion-scale
magnetospheres can be found on local regions of the Moon, associated with the
lunar crustal magnetic field. In this paper, we report on the laboratory
experimental study of magnetic reconnection in laser-driven, lunar-like
ion-scale magnetospheres on the Large Plasma Device (LAPD) at the University of
California - Los Angeles. In the experiment, a high-repetition rate (1 Hz),
nanosecond laser is used to drive a fast moving, collisionless plasma that
expands into the field generated by a pulsed magnetic dipole embedded into a
background plasma and magnetic field. The high-repetition rate enables the
acquisition of time-resolved volumetric data of the magnetic and electric
fields to characterize magnetic reconnection and calculate the reconnection
rate. We notably observe the formation of Hall fields associated with
reconnection. Particle-in-cell simulations reproducing the experimental results
were performed to study the micro-physics of the interaction. By analyzing the
generalized Ohm's law terms, we find that the electron-only reconnection is
driven by kinetic effects, through the electron pressure anisotropy. These
results are compared to recent satellite measurements that found evidence of
magnetic reconnection near the lunar surface.
