Localized and intense energy conversion in the diffusion region of asymmetric magnetic reconnection
arXiv:1710.04555 · doi:10.1029/2017GL076862
Abstract
We analyze a high-resolution simulation of magnetopause reconnection observed by the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission and explain the occurrence of strongly localized dissipation with an amplitude more than an order of magnitude larger than expected. Unlike symmetric reconnection, wherein reconnection of the ambient reversed magnetic field drives the dissipation, we find the annihilation of the self-generated, out-of-plane (Hall) magnetic field plays the dominant role. Electrons flow along the magnetosheath separatrices, converge in the diffusion region, and jet past the X-point into the magnetosphere. The resulting accumulation of negative charge generates intense parallel electric fields that eject electrons along the magnetospheric separatrices and produce field-aligned beams. Many of these features match MMS observations.
Accepted version
References in corpus (8)
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Cited by in corpus (4)
- In situ spacecraft observations of a structured electron diffusion region during magnetopause reconnection
- On the origin of "patchy" energy conversion in electron diffusion regions
- Assessing the time dependence of reconnection with Poynting's theorem: MMS observations
- The Reversibility Of Magnetic Reconnection