SM020-0012
Instabilities Associated with Electron-Scale X-line Evolution

Thursday, 10 December 2020
Poster
James Webster1, James Burch2, Patricia H Reiff3, Kevin James Genestreti4, Richard Eugene Denton5, Roy B Torbert6, Hiroshi Hasegawa7, Kyoung-Joo Hwang2, Kyunghwan Dokgo2, Sanni Hoilijoki8, Andrew Marshall3, Wenya Li9 and Stanislav Y Sazykin10, (1)Rice University, Physics, Houston, TX, United States, (2)Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, TX, United States, (3)Rice University, Houston, TX, United States, (4)Southwest Research Institute San Antonio, San Antonio, TX, United States, (5)Dartmouth College, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Hanover, NH, United States, (6)Univ New Hampshire, Durham, NH, United States, (7)JAXA Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Sagamihara, Japan, (8)Finnish Meteorological Inst, Helsinki, Finland, (9)IRF Swedish Institute of Space Physics Uppsala, Uppsala, Sweden, (10)Rice University, Physics and Astronomy Department, Houston, TX, United States
Abstract:
We use NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission to investigate conditions during two near-subsolar magnetopause reconnection events. Both events include X-line approaches inside of the ion diffusion region, and hybrid-scale size (~ √(di*de)) magnetic flux ropes indicative of multiple X-lines. Although reorientations of the interplanetary magnetic field (B-field) dictate changes in the dayside X-line locations at ion- and global-scales, here we examine the extent to which various instabilities may influence quasi-steady reconnection at the electron scale. Consideration is given to the out-of-plane B-field component and wave-particle instability growth rates vs. the location of MMS relative to the X-line(s).
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