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Observational Evidence of Magnetic Reconnection in the Terrestrial Bow Shock Transition Region

Journal Article · · Geophysical Research Letters
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1029/2018gl080944· OSTI ID:1612460
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [2];  [2];  [2];  [5];  [6];  [7]
  1. Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States); NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt, MD (United States); DOE/OSTI
  2. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt, MD (United States)
  3. Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States); NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt, MD (United States)
  4. Univ. of Bergen (Norway); Southwest Research Inst., San Antonio, TX (United States)
  5. Univ. of California, Los Angeles, CA (United States)
  6. Univ. of New Hampshire, Durham, NH (United States)
  7. Southwest Research Inst., San Antonio, TX (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations
Here, we report evidence of magnetic reconnection in the transition region of the Earth's bow shock when the angle between the shock normal and the immediate upstream magnetic field is 65°. An ion-skin-depth-scale current sheet exhibits the Hall current and field pattern, electron outflow jet, and enhanced energy conversion rate through the nonideal electric field, all consistent with a reconnection diffusion region close to the X-line. In the diffusion region, electrons are modulated by electromagnetic waves. An ion exhaust with energized field-aligned ions and electron parallel heating are observed in the same shock transition region. The energized ions are more separated from the inflowing ions in velocity above the current sheet than below, possibly due to the shear flow between the two inflow regions. The observation suggests that magnetic reconnection may contribute to shock energy dissipation.
Research Organization:
Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA); National Science Foundation (NSF); USDOE; USDOE Office of Science (SC)
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0016278
OSTI ID:
1612460
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1842917
OSTI ID: 1491932
Journal Information:
Geophysical Research Letters, Journal Name: Geophysical Research Letters Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 46; ISSN 0094-8276
Publisher:
American Geophysical UnionCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Cited By (6)

Electron‐Driven Dissipation in a Tailward Flow Burst journal June 2019
Magnetic Reconnection in a Quasi‐Parallel Shock: Two‐Dimensional Local Particle‐in‐Cell Simulation journal August 2019
Evidence of Magnetic Nulls in the Reconnection at Bow Shock journal September 2019
Can Reconnection be Triggered as a Solar Wind Directional Discontinuity Crosses the Bow Shock? A Case of Asymmetric Reconnection journal November 2019
Statistics of Reconnecting Current Sheets in the Transition Region of Earth's Bow Shock journal January 2020
Properties of the Turbulence Associated with Electron-only Magnetic Reconnection in Earth’s Magnetosheath journal June 2019

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Related Subjects

58 GEOSCIENCES
bow shock
energy conversion
geology
magnetic reconnection