Tracing the location of the reconnection site from the northern and southern cusps

Details Tracing the location of the reconnection site from the northern and southern cusps Tracing the location of the reconnection site from the northern and southern cusps

Nov 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006jgra..11111211t&link_type=abstract

Journal of Geophysical Research, Volume 111, Issue A11, CiteID A11211

Physics

6

Magnetospheric Physics: Cusp, Magnetospheric Physics: Magnetic Reconnection (7526, 7835), Magnetospheric Physics: Magnetospheric Configuration And Dynamics, Magnetospheric Physics: Solar Wind/Magnetosphere Interactions

Scientific paper

Three-dimensional plasma observations in the cusp have been successfully used to investigate the location of the reconnection site at the magnetopause. This technique uses low-velocity cutoffs in the precipitating and mirrored magnetosheath population traveling along open cusp field lines, which are then used to estimate the distance to the reconnection line. This distance is subsequently traced back along model magnetic field lines to the magnetopause to identify the location of the reconnection site. In this paper we use data obtained from two widely spaced spacecraft to assess the robustness and consistency in identifying the reconnection site using this technique. Two cusp crossings on 3 March 2003, observed by the Cluster satellites in the Northern Hemisphere and the Polar spacecraft in the Southern Hemisphere during similar solar wind plasma and IMF conditions, are used to trace the location of the reconnection site from two directions. Both estimates point to a reconnection site in the Southern Hemisphere close to the antiparallel reconnection site. The distributions of the trace locations at the magnetopause suggest the existence of a tilted X-line which crosses that region for these solar wind plasma and interplanetary magnetic field conditions, but the distinction between the antiparallel and the component reconnection scenario could not be conclusively made.

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