Speaker
Dr
Yi-Hsin Liu
(NASA-GSFC)
Description
At Earth's magnetopause, reconnection proceeds
asymmetrically between magnetosheath
plasmas, namely solar wind plasmas compressed by Earth's
bow shock, and
magnetospheric plasmas. In an asymmetric configuration, it
is unclear if there is a
simple principle to determine the orientation of the x-line.
Using fully kinetic
simulations, we study this issue and a spatially localized
perturbation is employed
to induce a single x-line, that has sufficient freedom to
choose its orientation in
three-dimensional systems. The effect of ion to electron mass
ratio is investigated,
and the x-line appears to bisect the magnetic shear angle
across the current sheet in
the large mass ratio limit. The deviation from the bisection
angle in the lower mass
ratio limit can be explained by the physics of tearing
instability. The same
principle that determines the orientation of the x-line in this
simple planar current
sheet could potentially guide us to find the location of
reconnection in a more
realistic magnetopause geometry.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1504.03300
Primary author
Dr
Yi-Hsin Liu
(NASA-GSFC)
Co-authors
Dr
Masha Kuznestsova
(NASA-GSFC)
Dr
Michael Hesse
(NASA-GSFC)
