Electron currents and heating in the ion diffusion region of asymmetric reconnectionUppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Swedish Institute of Space Physics, Uppsala Division.
KTH Royal Inst Technol, Sch Elect Engn, Space & Plasma Phys, Stockholm, Sweden..
Univ Colorado, Atmospher & Space Phys Lab, Campus Box 392, Boulder, CO 80309 USA..
NASA, Goddard Space Flight Ctr, Greenbelt, MD USA..
NASA, Goddard Space Flight Ctr, Greenbelt, MD USA.;Univ Maryland, Dept Astron, College Pk, MD 20742 USA..
NASA, Goddard Space Flight Ctr, Greenbelt, MD USA..
NASA, Goddard Space Flight Ctr, Greenbelt, MD USA..
NASA, Goddard Space Flight Ctr, Greenbelt, MD USA..
NASA, Goddard Space Flight Ctr, Greenbelt, MD USA.;Univ Maryland, Dept Astron, College Pk, MD 20742 USA..
Univ Toulouse UPS, Inst Rech Astrophys & Planetol, Toulouse, France.;CNRS, Toulouse, France..
JAXA, Inst Space & Astronaut Sci, Sagamihara, Kanagawa, Japan..
Austrian Acad Sci, Space Res Inst, A-8010 Graz, Austria..
Austrian Acad Sci, Space Res Inst, A-8010 Graz, Austria.;Univ Calif Los Angeles, Dept Earth & Space Sci, Los Angeles, CA 90024 USA..
Austrian Acad Sci, Space Res Inst, A-8010 Graz, Austria.;Univ Calif Los Angeles, Dept Earth & Space Sci, Los Angeles, CA 90024 USA..
Univ New Hampshire, Ctr Space Sci, Durham, NH 03824 USA..
SW Res Inst, San Antonio, TX USA..
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2016 (English)In: Geophysical Research Letters, ISSN 0094-8276, E-ISSN 1944-8007, Vol. 43, no 10, p. 4691-4700Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Resource type
Text
Abstract [en]
In this letter the structure of the ion diffusion region of magnetic reconnection at Earth's magnetopause is investigated using the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) spacecraft. The ion diffusion region is characterized by a strong DC electric field, approximately equal to the Hall electric field, intense currents, and electron heating parallel to the background magnetic field. Current structures well below ion spatial scales are resolved, and the electron motion associated with lower hybrid drift waves is shown to contribute significantly to the total current density. The electron heating is shown to be consistent with large-scale parallel electric fields trapping and accelerating electrons, rather than wave-particle interactions. These results show that sub-ion scale processes occur in the ion diffusion region and are important for understanding electron heating and acceleration.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2016. Vol. 43, no 10, p. 4691-4700
National Category
Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-299741DOI: 10.1002/2016GL068613ISI: 000378347500004OAI: oai:DiVA.org:uu-299741DiVA, id: diva2:949960
Funder
Swedish National Space Board
2016-07-262016-07-262017-11-28Bibliographically approved