We developed an experimental platform for studying magnetic reconnection in an external magnetic field with simultaneous measurements of plasma imaging, flow velocity, and magnetic-field variation. Here, we investigate the stagnation and acceleration in counter-streaming plasmas generated by high-power laser beams. A plasma flow perpendicular to the initial flow directions is measured with laser Thomson scattering. The flow is, interestingly, accelerated toward the high-density region, which is opposite to the direction of the acceleration by pressure gradients. This acceleration is possibly interpreted by the interaction of two magnetic field loops initially generated by Biermann battery effect, resulting in a magnetic reconnection forming a single field loop and additional acceleration by a magnetic tension force.Magnetic fields in plasmas have significant roles in thermalization, acceleration, and hydrodynamic turbulence in wide range of plasma parameters, for example, from low-β to highβ conditions, where β is the ratio of thermal to magnetic pressures. Magnetic reconnection (MR) is the most important mechanism in the global change of magnetic field topology and rapid energy transfer from the field to particles in fusion plasmas, magnetic storms in the earth's magnetosphere, solar eruptions, and magnetic fields in most astrophysical contexts 1 . MR physics can be interpreted as a combination of microscopic dissipation and macroscopic advection in surrounding magnetized plasmas. Previous numerical studies (e.g. magnetohydrodynamic 2 and full particle-in-cell 3 simulations) and observations (including electron and ion velocity distributions measured by the Geotail spacecraft 4 ) have approached these two mechanisms from separate viewpoints and this makes it difficult to investigate the physical mechanisms by which energy changes from across large spatial scales, and how the reconnection rate is determined.Laboratory experiments have an advantage in that various plasma diagnostics can be used simultaneously both for microscopic and macroscopic phenomena. Local plasma parameters and magnetic fields have been precisely diagnosed in gas-discharged plasmas such as TS-3 5,6 , MRX 7,8 , and pulse-powered devices 9,10 , with relatively low-beta (β < 1). a) Electronic mail: morita@aees.kyushu-u.ac.jp.Recently, strongly-driven MR has been studied using laserproduced plasmas [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] under strong magnetic fields generated by the interaction of high-power lasers with solids via the Biermann battery effect (∂ B/∂t ∝ ∇T e × ∇n e ) 20 . In contrast to other laboratory experiments, laser-produced plasmas with high temperatures and densities enable us to investigate MR in high-beta conditions, similar to those in magnetosheath (β ∼ 0.1-10) 21 and in accretion disks (β > 10) 22 . However, few diagnostics are available in such small-scale plasmas, and recent studies have focused on topological change in a field 13-15 , global plasma structure 17-19 , and numerical simulations 11,12 . Although spatially...