SM022-02
Electron-scale currents in the dayside magnetopause: Observations over two seasons

Thursday, 10 December 2020: 07:03
Virtual
Yi Qi, University of California, Los Angeles, Department of Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences, Los Angeles, CA, United States, Christopher T Russell, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, United States, Robert J Strangeway, UCLA IGPP/ESS, Los Angeles, CA, United States, Ying-Dong Jia, UCLA-IGPP, Los Angeles, CA, United States, Mark Alexander Alexander Hubbert, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States, James Burch, Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, TX, United States, William R Paterson, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Geospace Physics Laboratory, Greenbelt, MD, United States, Barbara L Giles, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, United States and Roy B Torbert, Univ New Hampshire, Durham, NH, United States
Abstract:
Magnetic reconnection on the Earth’s dayside magnetopause has a major impact on the entire magnetosphere being the dominant driver of magnetic flux and momentum transport by the shocked solar wind. Reconnection is a multi-scale process. While its impact is global, the abrupt energization and field annihilation may take place within limited regions. Previous work supported by the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission has shown the important role of electrons in supporting the reconnection electric field and influencing the overall reconnection process, not only in the electron diffusion region (EDR), but also in downstream exhaust. New discoveries of electron-only reconnection onset in thin current sheets also sheds light on the importance of electron-kinetic-scale boundaries in space plasmas. However, the general properties of these type of thin boundaries and their relations with reconnection remains an open question. In this study, we review the use of radius of curvature (Rc) as a tool to reveal the spatial scale of the magnetic field variations. With this tool we examine the small-Rc-crossings selected during the first two dayside phases of MMS. Some encounters seem to be more laminar current sheet crossings while others happen in a more turbulent fashion. We examine the solar wind conditions of these events and find that, while the small-Rc-crossings are ubiquitous on the magnetopause, the solar wind influences their distribution. Different distributions of events under southward/northward interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) indicates the occurrences of small-Rc-crossings are reconnection related.
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