Conditions for the Onset and Cessation of Reconnection in Solar Wind Current Sheets

Details Conditions for the Onset and Cessation of Reconnection in Solar Wind Current Sheets Conditions for the Onset and Cessation of Reconnection in Solar Wind Current Sheets

Dec 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008agufmsm21b..07p&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2008, abstract #SM21B-07

Physics

2723 Magnetic Reconnection (7526, 7835), 7526 Magnetic Reconnection (2723, 7835), 7835 Magnetic Reconnection (2723, 7526)

Scientific paper

The recent discovery of reconnection in solar wind current sheets has provided an unprecedented opportunity to study the structure and dynamics of reconnection without the complex boundary conditions often found in the Earth's magnetosphere. Studies of solar wind reconnection exhausts have revealed clear evidence for component reconnection with magnetic shear as low as 15 degrees, for reconnection X-lines extending tens of thousands of ion skin depths and remaining quasi-steady over thousands of ion gyroperiods. In this presentation we discuss the results of a survey of Wind, ACE, and THEMIS data which indicate that the occurrence of reconnection in solar wind current sheets depends on both the plasma beta and the magnetic shear. At low beta reconnection occurs for a large range of magnetic shear whereas at high beta, reconnection exhausts are detected only for large magnetic shear. The dependence on plasma beta is also evident from the finding that reconnection, present in the convecting solar wind current sheets, often ceases downstream of the bow shock where the plasma beta is enhanced.

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