Electron crescent distributions as a manifestation of diamagnetic drift in an electron scale current sheet

Abstract

We report Magnetospheric Multiscale observations of electron pressure gradient electric fields near a magnetic reconnection diffusion region using a new technique for extracting 7.5 ms electron moments from the Fast Plasma Investigation. We find that the deviation of the perpendicular electron bulk velocity from $E\times B$ drift in the interval where the out-of-plane current density is increasing can be explained by the diamagnetic drift. In the interval where the out-of-plane current is transitioning to in-plane current, the electron momentum equation is not satisfied at 7.5 ms resolution.

arXiv comment6 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (5)

• Two-scale structure of the electron dissipation region during collisionless magnetic reconnection
• Kinetic signatures of the region surrounding the X-line in asymmetric (magnetopause) reconnection
• Enhanced Electron Mixing and Heating in 3D Asymmetric Reconnection at the Earth's Magnetopause
• Spacecraft observations and analytic theory of crescent-shaped electron distributions in asymmetric magnetic reconnection
• Localized Oscillatory Dissipation in Magnetopause Reconnection