Spacecraft Observations of Oblique Electron Beams Breaking the Frozen-In Law During Asymmetric Reconnection

Egedal, J.; Le, Ari; Daughton, William; Wetherton, Blake; Cassak, P. A.; Burch, J. L.; Lavraud, B.; Dorelli, J.; Gershman, D. J.; Avanov, L. A.

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.055101

Title: Spacecraft Observations of Oblique Electron Beams Breaking the Frozen-In Law During Asymmetric Reconnection

Journal Article · 28 January 2018 · Physical Review Letters

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.055101 · OSTI ID:1441327

Egedal, J. ^[1];

^[2];

^[2]; Wetherton, Blake ^[1]; Cassak, P. A. ^[3]; Burch, J. L. ^[4]; Lavraud, B. ^[5]; Dorelli, J. ^[6]; Gershman, D. J. ^[6]; Avanov, L. A. ^[6]

Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States). Dept. of Physics
Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
West Virginia Univ., Morgantown, WV (United States). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
Southwest Research Inst. (SwRI), San Antonio, TX (United States)
Univ. of Toulouse (France). Inst. of Research in Astrophysics and Planetology (IRAP)
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt, MD (United States). Heliophysics Science Division

Fully kinetic simulations of asymmetric magnetic reconnection reveal the presence of magnetic-field-aligned beams of electrons flowing toward the topological magnetic x line. Within the ~ 6d_e electron-diffusion region, the beams become oblique to the local magnetic field, providing a unique signature of the electron-diffusion region where the electron frozen-in law is broken. These numerical predictions are confirmed by in situ Magnetospheric Multiscale spacecraft observations during asymmetric reconnection at Earth’s dayside magnetopause.

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Research Organization:: Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE; National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA); National Science Foundation (NSF)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC52-06NA25396

OSTI ID:: 1441327

Report Number(s):: LA-UR-18-20045

Journal Information:: Physical Review Letters, Journal Name: Physical Review Letters Journal Issue: 5 Vol. 120; ISSN 0031-9007; ISSN PRLTAO

Publisher:: American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited By (5)

The Role of the Parallel Electric Field in Electron-Scale Dissipation at Reconnecting Currents in the Magnetosheath Wilder, F. D.; Ergun, R. E.; Burch, J. L. Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, Vol. 123, Issue 8 https://doi.org/10.1029/2018ja025529	journal	August 2018
Drift turbulence, particle transport, and anomalous dissipation at the reconnecting magnetopause Le, A.; Daughton, W.; Ohia, O. Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 25, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5027086	journal	June 2018
Statistics on the Magnetosheath Properties Related to Magnetopause Magnetic Reconnection Zhang, Hui; Fu, Suiyan; Pu, Zuyin The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 880, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ab290e	journal	August 2019
Crescent‐Shaped Electron Distributions at the Nonreconnecting Magnetopause: Magnetospheric Multiscale Observations Tang, B. ‐B.; Li, W. Y.; Graham, D. B. Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 46, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1029/2019gl082231	journal	March 2019
Three-dimensional stability of current sheets supported by electron pressure anisotropy Le, A.; Stanier, A.; Daughton, W. Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 26, Issue 10 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5125014	journal	October 2019

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79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
magnetic reconnection
space and astrophysical plasma
Earth's magnetosphere
satellite data analysis

Title: Spacecraft Observations of Oblique Electron Beams Breaking the Frozen-In Law During Asymmetric Reconnection

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