In situ spacecraft observations of a structured electron diffusion region during magnetopause reconnection

Giulia Cozzani 1, 2 Alessandro Retinò 1 Francesco Califano 3 Alexandra Alexandrova 1 Olivier Le Contel 1 Yuri Khotyaintsev 4 Andris Vaivads 5 Huishan Fu Filomena Catapano 6, 1 Hugo Breuillard 7, 1 Narges Ahmadi Per-Arne Lindqvist 8 Robert E. Ergun Robert B. Torbert Barbara L. Giles Christopher T. Russell 9 Rumi Nakamura Stephen Fuselier 10 Barry H. Mauk Thomas Moore James L. Burch 11
1 LPP - Laboratoire de Physique des Plasmas
2 Dipartimento di Fisica "E. Fermi"
3 Dipartimento di Fisica 'E Fermi' & CNISM
4 IRF - Swedish Institute of Space Physics [Kiruna]
5 IRF - Swedish Institute of Space Physics [Uppsala]
6 Dipartimento di Fisica Università della Calabria
7 LPC2E - Laboratoire de Physique et Chimie de l'Environnement et de l'Espace
8 KTH - Royal Institute of Technology [Stockholm]
9 IGPP - Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics [Los Angeles]
10 Space Science Division [San Antonio]
11 SwRI - Southwest Research Institute [San Antonio]
Abstract : The Electron Diffusion Region (EDR) is the region where magnetic reconnection is initiated and electrons are energized. Because of experimental difficulties, the structure of the EDR is still poorly understood. A key question is whether the EDR has a homogeneous or patchy structure. Here we report Magnetospheric MultiScale (MMS) novel spacecraft observations providing evidence of inhomogeneous current densities and energy conversion over a few electron inertial lengths within an EDR at the terrestrial magnetopause, suggesting that the EDR can be rather structured. These inhomogenenities are revealed through multi-point measurements because the spacecraft separation is comparable to a few electron inertial lengths, allowing the entire MMS tetrahedron to be within the EDR most of the time. These observations are consistent with recent high-resolution and low-noise kinetic simulations.
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Giulia Cozzani, Alessandro Retinò, Francesco Califano, Alexandra Alexandrova, Olivier Le Contel, et al.. In situ spacecraft observations of a structured electron diffusion region during magnetopause reconnection. Physical Review E , American Physical Society (APS), 2019, 99 (4), pp.043204 (2019). ⟨10.1103/PhysRevE.99.043204⟩. ⟨hal-02108306⟩

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