July 27, 2015 to August 21, 2015
Nordita, Stockholm
Europe/Stockholm timezone

Multi-point observations of reconnection signatures in the Earth's magnetotail

Aug 11, 2015, 9:30 AM
45m
FD5 (FD5)

FD5

FD5

Keynote Workshop, August 10-14 Morning II

Speaker

Dr Rumi Nakamura (IWF/OEAW)

Description

In the Earth's magnetotail, there are two preferred sites for the magnetic reconnection. One is in the distant tail usually beyond the lunar orbit, and is considered to be semi-permanently present. The other is in the near tail at a distance of a few tens of Earth radius (Re), where the magnetic reconnection initially involves closed-field lines in the plasma sheet and hence affected strongly by internal processes in addition to the external drivers. Important consequence of the magnetotail reconnection is the narrow fast plasma jets (known as bursty bulk flows), which provide the major contribution to energy and mass transport in the magnetotail. Interaction with the reconnection jets moving Earthward and the Earth's dipole field lead to acceleration of particles, formation of the field-aligned current system, and associated auroral precipitation, and modifies the near-Earth field configuration. In this way the near-Earth's magnetotail reconnection has also large-scale consequences as manifested during substorms. This presentation high-lights observations of the thin current sheets during near- Earth's magnetotail reconnection and the reconnection jet evolution obtained from multi-point measurements by Cluster and THEMIS and addresses expected observations with the newly launched MMS. Depending on the spacecraft configuration, processes relevant to reconnection with different spatial/temporal scales have been observed by the spacecraft. Characteristics of the Hall-current in the ion diffusion region and a 3D nature of the localized magnetic structures in the reconnection region without guide field and with guide field are presented. Larger scale processes associated with the braking of the fast flow in the near Earth magnetosphere and formation of thin-current sheet that leads to onset of reconnection will be also discussed.

Primary author

Dr Rumi Nakamura (IWF/OEAW)

Presentation materials