Ion‐scale secondary flux ropes generated by magnetopause reconnection as resolved by MMS

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• 作者：J. P. Eastwood ; T. D. Phan ; P. A. Cassak ; D. J. Gershman ; C. Haggerty ; K. Malakit ; M. A. Shay ; R. Mistry ; M. Øieroset ; C. T. Russell ; et al
• 刊名：Geophysical Research Letters
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：28 May 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：43
• 期：10
• 页码：4716-4724
• 全文大小：2.7MB
• ISSN：1944-8007

文摘

New Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) observations of small-scale (~7 ion inertial length radius) flux transfer events (FTEs) at the dayside magnetopause are reported. The 10 km MMS tetrahedron size enables their structure and properties to be calculated using a variety of multispacecraft techniques, allowing them to be identified as flux ropes, whose flux content is small (~22 kWb). The current density, calculated using plasma and magnetic field measurements independently, is found to be filamentary. Intercomparison of the plasma moments with electric and magnetic field measurements reveals structured non-frozen-in ion behavior. The data are further compared with a particle-in-cell simulation. It is concluded that these small-scale flux ropes, which are not seen to be growing, represent a distinct class of FTE which is generated on the magnetopause by secondary reconnection.