Whistler Mode Waves Observed During Reconnection in the Earth’s Turbulent Magnetosheath

Abstract:

Magnetic reconnection is a fundamental process in plasma physics that originates from the collision of plasma containing sheared magnetic fields and converts stored magnetic energy into an explosive amount of kinetic energy and heat. In order to investigate this phenomenon, NASA launched the Magnetospheric Multi-scale (MMS) mission, a constellation of four satellites in a tetrahedral formation in order to study the phenomenon of magnetic reconnection on the electron scale. Recent observations have shown magnetic reconnection. can occur in the turbulent regions of earth’s magnetosheath behind the quasi-parallel bow shock In this region, reconnection can occur on a small enough scale that only the electrons are affected by the process. We present data from MMS that addresses the question of what wave modes in the turbulent magnetosheath may impact the process of magnetic reconnection. We investigate electron scale current sheets in a turbulent region and show that guide field and anti-parallel reconnection events look significantly different in their dissipation characteristics. Additionally, one of the events observes whistler mode waves within the current sheet while the other doesn’t. Preliminary results suggest that the whistler waves might be generated from beam distributions associated with the turbulence or shock and could potentially have an impact on the reconnection process.