Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
Dec 2005
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2005agufmsm23a0388b&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2005, abstract #SM23A-0388
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
2100 Interplanetary Physics, 2700 Magnetospheric Physics (6939), 7500 Solar Physics, Astrophysics, And Astronomy, 7835 Magnetic Reconnection (2723, 7526)
Scientific paper
Over the last 30 years, studies of magnetic reconnection have yielded valuable observational data and have led to the development of various competing models. However, many basic questions about the microphysics of reconnection, the factors that control it, its spatial distribution, and temporal behavior remain unanswered. The NASA Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) science mission will be implemented by an Instrument Suite Science Team named SMART (Solving Magnetospheric Acceleration, Reconnection and Turbulence). The MMS-SMART instrument complement and orbital strategies, described in this paper, are designed specifically to answer the major outstanding questions about the microphysics of reconnection, to distinguish between competing models, and to identify new phenomena that are of importance to reconnection in the magnetosphere. Three different low-inclination orbital phases will be used to optimize encounters with reconnection regions along the magnetopause and in the Earth's magnetic tail where MMS-SMART will resolve all of the important spatial scales relevant to the reconnection process. At the electron inertial scale, the four MMS spacecraft will probe the electron diffusion region. At the larger ion inertial scale, the four spacecraft will explore the ion diffusion region where the ions become demagnetized but the electrons are still magnetized. Finally, at the mesoscale, where both the ions and electrons are magnetized and move together as an MHD fluid, the MMS constellation will study force-free flux ropes and plasmoids. An important component of MMS-SMART is its significant Theory and Modeling component. Detailed inputs to the measurement strategy are being made by the ever increasing sophistication of contemporary models of reconnection, and this interplay between theory and experiment will continue throughout the mission's development and operation.
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