Orientation and Structure of Reconnection Layer from Simulated Spacecraft Data

Details Orientation and Structure of Reconnection Layer from Simulated Spacecraft Data Orientation and Structure of Reconnection Layer from Simulated Spacecraft Data

Dec 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008agufmsm53b..06d&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2008, abstract #SM53B-06

Other

2723 Magnetic Reconnection (7526, 7835), 2724 Magnetopause And Boundary Layers, 2744 Magnetotail, 2794 Instruments And Techniques

Scientific paper

We test methods for determining the orientation and structure of quasi-two-dimensional reconnection regions using data from four simulated spacecraft (representing CLUSTER or MMS) flying in a tetrahedral formation through MHD and fully kinetic magnetic reconnection simulations. (The MHD simulations are 3D, but the large-scale structures are approximately two dimensional.) Methods tested for the determination of the orientation include minimization of the axial (quasi-out-of-plane) direction electric field [Sonnerup and Hasegawa, JGR A06208, 2005], and methods using the gradient of various quantities, including the methods of Shi et al. based on the gradient of the vector magnetic field [GRL L12105, 2005, GRL L08109, 2006]. For the MHD simulations, the method based on the electric field fails because the axial component of the electric field is far larger than the other components; the method minimizes the variation by selecting another component other than the true axial component. The method of Shi et al., however, works quite well, and has the advantage that it yields a point by point (at each time) determination of the orientation. Results for two- dimensional reconstruction of the magnetic field using the techniques of Sonnerup et al. [JGR A09204, 2006, JGR A05202] will also be shown. For the MHD simulation, the island structure is fairly well reconstructed, but the X-point is not (at least in part because the simulation has resistivity and the reconstruction method is currently valid only for ideal MHD). Results will also be shown for a simulated pass of spacecraft through a two-dimensional fully kinetic simulation.

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