4.5 Article

Magnetospheric Multiscale Dayside Reconnection Electron Diffusion Region Events

Journal

JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH-SPACE PHYSICS
Volume 123, Issue 6, Pages 4858-4878

Publisher

AMER GEOPHYSICAL UNION
DOI: 10.1029/2018JA025245

Keywords

reconnection; electron; diffusion; MMS; energization; magnetopause

Funding

  1. NASA [NNX14AN55G, NNG04EB99C]
  2. NASA [678354, NNX14AN55G] Funding Source: Federal RePORTER

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We use high-resolution data from dayside passes of the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission to create for the first time a comprehensive listing of encounters with the electron diffusion region (EDR), as evidenced by electron agyrotropy, ion jet reversals, and j.E' > 0. We present an overview of these 32 EDR or near-EDR events, which demonstrate a wide variety of observed plasma behavior inside and surrounding the reconnection site. We analyze in detail three of the 21 new EDR encounters, which occurred within a 1-min-long interval on 23 November 2016. The three events, which resulted from a relatively low and oscillating magnetopause velocity, exhibited large electric fields (up to similar to 100 mV/m), crescent-shaped electron velocity phase space densities, large currents (>= 2 mu A/m(2)), and Ohmic heating of the plasma (similar to 10 nW/m(3)). We include an Ohm's law analysis, in which we show that the divergence of the electron pressure term usually dominates the nonideal terms and is much more turbulent on the magnetosphere versus the magnetosheath side of the EDR.

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