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Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2013

Cluster Spacecraft Observations of Magnetopause Reconnection at Multiple Scales

Alessandro Retinò
A. Vaivads
Fouad Sahraoui
Patrick Canu
R. Nakamura
F. Mozer

Résumé

Magnetic reconnection is an inherently multi-scale process where the dynamics at small-scales strongly affect the large-scale evolution of the process. The microphysics of reconnection (i.e. the physics at proton scales and below) is particularly important. Key questions are reconnection onset, time evolution (rate) and ion and electron heating/acceleration around reconnection sites. The Earth's magnetopause is an excellent laboratory for studying reconnection, especially at subsolar point where is more steady and easier to study with spacecraft data. Despite of initially being a high-latitude mission, ESA/Cluster spacecraft have crossed the subsolar magnetopause starting from 2008. During such recent orbits two spacecraft were separated by ~10s km (sub-proton/electron scales) while being apart ~ 1000s km (fluid scales) from the others. This special configuration allows studying reconnection at multiple scales. Here we present a few examples of magnetopause reconnection from such recent Cluster multi-scale orbits. For one case of subsolar reconnection, the observation of jet reversals at large scales allows setting the position of the reconnection site in between the spacecraft. Two-point observations at sub-proton/electron scales are then used to identify a very thin rotational discontinuity (having a thickness of about 10 electron gyroradii) and study the microphysics therein. We also show a few other examples of magnetopause reconnection from the Cluster Guest Investigator campaign (2012), for which orbit, spacecraft configuration and instrument modes were tailored to study reconnection at multiple scales. We discuss the relevance of such recent Cluster measurements for the reconnection science of upcoming NASA/MMS and other multi-scale future missions.
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Dates et versions

hal-02860547 , version 1 (08-06-2020)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : hal-02860547 , version 1

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Alessandro Retinò, A. Vaivads, A. Chasapis, C. Rossi, Fouad Sahraoui, et al.. Cluster Spacecraft Observations of Magnetopause Reconnection at Multiple Scales. American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2013, Dec 2013, San Francisco, California, United States. pp.SM13E-06. ⟨hal-02860547⟩
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