Electron-scale Structures in Collisionless Magnetic Reconnection with Multiple Reconnection Sites

Physics

Scientific paper

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2723 Magnetic Reconnection (7526, 7835), 2744 Magnetotail, 2772 Plasma Waves And Instabilities (2471), 7863 Turbulence (4490)

Scientific paper

The electron-magnetohydrodynamics (EMHD) model is used to study electron scale structures during the early phase of collisionless reconnection. In this model the electron inertia leads to the breakdown of frozen-in condition and the electron dynamics is responsible for the evolution of reconnection. The simulations show significant differences in the spatial structures when reconnection takes place at a single or multiple reconnection sites. The main differences in the structures and their scale lengths in the two cases arise due to the important roles of electron flows in the two cases. In the case of multiple reconnection sites, interaction of flows generated at the neighbouring sites leads to nested structure of quadrupoles of the out-of-plane magnetic field. The length of the reconnecting current sheet is also strongly modified due to the electron flows. Initially the current sheet length is determined essentially by the wavelength of the maximally growing mode, and subsequently it reduces due to the secondary instabilites in the nonlinear phase. The reduced length scales linearly with the initial width of the current sheet. The out-of-plane current sheet becomes highly structured, with bifurcated, triple peak, or filamentry features. These structures are compared with Cluster observations. The implications of these electron scale structures for the NASA/MMS mission, with the capability to resolve the short scale structures ~ de, will be presented.

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