Cluster PEACE Observations of Electron Pressure Tensor Divergence in the Magnetotail

Details Cluster PEACE Observations of Electron Pressure Tensor Divergence in the Magnetotail Cluster PEACE Observations of Electron Pressure Tensor Divergence in the Magnetotail

Dec 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006agufmsm41a1452h&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2006, abstract #SM41A-1452

Physics

2712 Electric Fields (2411), 2721 Field-Aligned Currents And Current Systems (2409), 2764 Plasma Sheet

Scientific paper

Cluster crossed the magnetotail neutral sheet on four occasions between 16:35 and 16:45 UT on 08/17/2003. The four-spacecraft capabilities of Cluster are used to determine spatial gradients from the magnetic field vectors and, for the first time, full electron pressure tensors. The measurement of the divergence of the electron pressure could have important implications for the theory of reconnection. Theoretical simulations suggest that reconnection is triggered by an electric field, known as the reconnection electric field, arising from the divergence of the electron pressure tensor in the electron diffusion region. We find that the contribution to the electric field from the Hall term (max of ~ 6 mV/m) pointed towards the neutral sheet, whereas that from the electron pressure divergence (max of ~ 1 mV/m) pointed away from the neutral sheet. No clear observation of the reconnection electric field was made. The electric field contributions in the direction normal to the neutral sheet were closely anti-correlated. During this period different spacecraft were sometimes located on either side of the neutral sheet detecting magnetic fields in the GSM-X direction with a difference of ˜ 20 nT. This allowed the simultaneous observation of two quadrants of the Hall quadrupolar magnetic field system and associated currents, detected with both the curlometer and moments of the particle distributions.

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