Title: Super-Alfvénic Propagation and Damping of Reconnection Onset Signatures

Abstract

The quadrupolar out-of-plane Hall magnetic leld generated during collisionless reconnection propagates away from the x line as a kinetic Alfvén wave (KAW). While it has been shown that this KAW carries substantial Poynting flux and propagates super-Alfvenically, how this KAW damps as it propagates away from the x line is not well understood. In this study, this damping is examined using kinetic particle-in-cell simulations of antiparallel symmetric magnetic reconnection in a one-dimensional current sheet equilibrium. In the reconnection simulations, the KAW wave vector has a typical magnitude comparable to an inverse fluid Larmor radius (effectively an inverse ion Larmor radius) and a direction of 85–89°relative to the local magnetic field. We find that the damping of the reconnection KAW is consistent with linear Landau damping results from a numerical Vlasov dispersion solver. This knowledge allows us to generalize our damping predictions to regions in the magnetotail and solar corona where the magnetic geometry can be approximated as a current sheet. For the magneto tail, the KAW from reconnection will not damp away before propagating the approximately 20 Earth radii associated with global magneto tail distances. For the solar corona, on the other hand, these KAWs will completely damp before reachingmore » the distances comparable to the flare loop length.« less

Authors:

Sharma Pyakurel, P.  ^[1];

• Search DOE PAGES for author "Sharma Pyakurel, P."
• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0003-4832-7638"

Shay, M. A.  ^[1];

• Search DOE PAGES for author "Shay, M. A."
• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0003-1861-4767"

Haggerty, C. C.  ^[1];

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• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0002-2160-7288"

Parashar, T. N.  ^[1];

• Search DOE PAGES for author "Parashar, T. N."
• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0003-0602-8381"

Drake, J. F.  ^[2];

• Search DOE PAGES for author "Drake, J. F."
• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0002-9150-1841"

Cassak, P. A.  ^[3];

• Search DOE PAGES for author "Cassak, P. A."
• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0002-5938-1050"

Gary, S. Peter  ^[4]

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• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0002-4655-2316"

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+ Show Author Affiliations

1. Univ. of Delaware, Newark, DE (United States). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
2. Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States)
3. West Virginia Univ., Morgantown, WV (United States)
4. Space Science Inst., Boulder, CO (United States)

Publication Date:

Tue Dec 05 00:00:00 EST 2017

Research Org.:

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC)

Sponsoring Org.:

USDOE

OSTI Identifier:

1461626

Resource Type:

Accepted Manuscript

Journal Name:

Journal of Geophysical Research. Space Physics

Additional Journal Information:

Journal Volume: 123; Journal Issue: 1; Journal ID: ISSN 2169-9380

Publisher:

American Geophysical Union

Country of Publication:

United States

Language:

English

Subject:

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS