Speaker
Dr
Sergio Toledo Redondo
(Swedish Institute of Space Physics)
Description
Recent studies show that cold ions (energies up to tens of eV) of
ionospheric origin are present in
the magnetosphere and often reach the magnetopause, participating in
magnetic reconnection. At
low latitudes they are abundant and even dominate over the hot
magnetospheric ions. Owing to
their smaller gyroradius, they remain magnetized down to smaller
scales than the hot ions and
therefore introduce a new length-scale into the reconnection process.
We use Cluster
observations of the subsolar magnetopause during 2007 and 2008 to
investigate how these cold
ions are heated when entering the exhaust at different locations of the
separatrix region. In some
crossings we observe cold ions well inside the reconnection jet, while in
other crossings the cold
ions are effectively heated in the separatrices while entering into the
jet. We suggest that near
the diffusion region the E fields are strong and energization of cold ions
is efficient, while far away
from the diffusion region the E fields are weaker and energization is
less efficient.
Primary author
Dr
Sergio Toledo Redondo
(Swedish Institute of Space Physics)
Co-authors
Dr
Andris Vaivads
(Swedish Institute of Space Physics)
Dr
Mats André
(Swedish Institute of Space Physics)
Dr
Yuri Khotyaintsev
(Swedish Institute of Space Physics)
