Observational evidence of magnetic reconnection in the terrestrial bow shock transition region

Abstract

We report evidence of magnetic reconnection in the transition region of the terrestrial bow shock when the angle between the shock normal and the immediate upstream magnetic field is 65 degrees. An ion-skin-depth-scale current sheet exhibits the Hall current and field pattern, electron outflow jet, and enhanced energy conversion rate through the nonideal electric field, all consistent with a reconnection diffusion region close to the X-line. In the diffusion region, electrons are modulated by electromagnetic waves. An ion exhaust with energized field-aligned ions and electron parallel heating are observed in the same shock transition region. The energized ions are more separated from the inflowing ions in velocity above the current sheet than below, possibly due to the shear flow between the two inflow regions. The observation suggests that magnetic reconnection may contribute to shock energy dissipation.

References in corpus (1)

• Electron Heating During Magnetic Reconnection: A Simulation Scaling Study

Cited by in corpus (8)

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• Electron-scale reconnection in three-dimensional shock turbulence
• Two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulation of magnetic reconnection in the downstream of a quasi-perpendicular shock
• Magnetic Flux Transport Identification of Active Reconnection: MMS Observations in Earth's Magnetosphere
• Ion-scale current structures in Short Large-Amplitude Magnetic Structures
• Turbulent Energy Conversion Associated with Kinetic Microinstabilities in Earth's Magnetosheath
• Electron-only Reconnection in Ion-scale Current Sheet at the Magnetopause
• Observational Evidence of Magnetic Reconnection in the Terrestrial Foreshock Region