Lower-Hybrid Drift Waves Driving Electron Nongyrotropic Heating and Vortical Flows in a Magnetic Reconnection Layer

We report measurements of lower-hybrid drift waves driving electron heating and vortical flows in an electron-scale reconnection layer under a guide field. Electrons accelerated by the electrostatic potential of the waves exhibit perpendicular and nongyrotropic heating. The vortical flows generate magnetic field perturbations comparable to the guide field magnitude. The measurements reveal a new regime of electron-wave interaction and how this interaction modifies the electron dynamics in the reconnection layer.

Neural Network Repair of Lossy Compression Artifacts in the September 2015 to March 2016 Duration of the MMS/FPI Data Set

During the September 2015 to March 2016 duration (sometimes referred to as Phase 1A) of the Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission, the Dual Electron Spectrometers (DES) were configured to generously utilize lossy compression. While this maximized the number of velocity distribution functions downlinked, it came at the expense of lost information content for a fraction of the frames. Following this period of lossy compression, the DES was reconfigured in a way that allowed for 95% of the frames to arrive to the ground without loss. Using this high-quality set of frames from on-orbit observations, we compressed and decompressed the frames on the ground to create a side-by-side record of the compression effect. This record was used to drive an optimization method that (a) derived basis functions capable of approximating the lossless sample space and with nonnegative coefficients and (b) fitted a function which maps the lossy frames to basis weights that recreate the frame without compression artifacts. This method is introduced and evaluated in this paper. Data users should expect a higher level of confidence in the absolute scale of density/temperature measurements and notice less sinusoidal bias in the velocity X and Y components (GSE).

Pressure Tensor Elements Breaking the Frozen-In Law During Reconnection in Earth's Magnetotail

Aided by fully kinetic simulations, spacecraft observations of magnetic reconnection in Earth's magnetotail are analyzed. The structure of the electron diffusion region is in quantitative agreement with the numerical model. Of special interest, the spacecraft data reveal how reconnection is mediated by off-diagonal stress in the electron pressure tensor breaking the frozen-in law of the electron fluid.

Electron Bulk Acceleration and Thermalization at Earth's Quasiperpendicular Bow Shock

Electron heating at Earth's quasiperpendicular bow shock has been surmised to be due to the combined effects of a quasistatic electric potential and scattering through wave-particle interaction. Here we report the observation of electron distribution functions indicating a new electron heating process occurring at the leading edge of the shock front. Incident solar wind electrons are accelerated parallel to the magnetic field toward downstream, reaching an electron-ion relative drift speed exceeding the electron thermal speed. The bulk acceleration is associated with an electric field pulse embedded in a whistler-mode wave. The high electron-ion relative drift is relaxed primarily through a nonlinear current-driven instability. The relaxed distributions contain a beam traveling toward the shock as a remnant of the accelerated electrons. Similar distribution functions prevail throughout the shock transition layer, suggesting that the observed acceleration and thermalization is essential to the cross-shock electron heating.

Quantifying the Effect of Non-Larmor Motion of Electrons on the Pressure Tensor

In space plasma, various effects of magnetic reconnection and turbulence cause the electron motion to significantly deviate from their Larmor orbits. Collectively these orbits affect the electron velocity distribution function and lead to the appearance of the "non-gyrotropic" elements in the pressure tensor. Quantification of this effect has important applications in space and laboratory plasma, one of which is tracing the electron diffusion region (EDR) of magnetic reconnection in space observations. Three different measures of agyrotropy of pressure tensor have previously been proposed, namely, A∅ _e , D_ng and Q. The multitude of contradictory measures has caused confusion within the community. We revisit the problem by considering the basic properties an agyrotropy measure should have. We show that A∅ _e , D_ng and Q are all defined based on the sum of the principle minors (i.e. the rotation invariant I ₂) of the pressure tensor. We discuss in detail the problems of I ₂-based measures and explain why they may produce ambiguous and biased results. We introduce a new measure AG constructed based on the determinant of the pressure tensor (i.e. the rotation invariant I ₃) which does not suffer from the problems of I ₂-based measures. We compare AG with other measures in 2 and 3-dimension particle-in-cell magnetic reconnection simulations, and show that AG can effectively trace the EDR of reconnection in both Harris and force-free current sheets. On the other hand, A∅ _e does not show prominent peaks in the EDR and part of the separatrix in the force-free reconnection simulations, demonstrating that A∅ _e does not measure all the non-gyrotropic effects in this case, and is not suitable for studying magnetic reconnection in more general situations other than Harris sheet reconnection.

Spacecraft Observations of Oblique Electron Beams Breaking the Frozen-In Law During Asymmetric Reconnection

Fully kinetic simulations of asymmetric magnetic reconnection reveal the presence of magnetic-field-aligned beams of electrons flowing toward the topological magnetic x line. Within the ∼6d_{e} electron-diffusion region, the beams become oblique to the local magnetic field, providing a unique signature of the electron-diffusion region where the electron frozen-in law is broken. The numerical predictions are confirmed by in situ Magnetospheric Multiscale spacecraft observations during asymmetric reconnection at Earth's dayside magnetopause.

Spacecraft Observations and Analytic Theory of Crescent-Shaped Electron Distributions in Asymmetric Magnetic Reconnection

Supported by a kinetic simulation, we derive an exclusion energy parameter E_{X} providing a lower kinetic energy bound for an electron to cross from one inflow region to the other during magnetic reconnection. As by a Maxwell demon, only high-energy electrons are permitted to cross the inner reconnection region, setting the electron distribution function observed along the low-density side separatrix during asymmetric reconnection. The analytic model accounts for the two distinct flavors of crescent-shaped electron distributions observed by spacecraft in a thin boundary layer along the low-density separatrix.

Flux pileup in collisionless magnetic reconnection: bursty interaction of large flux ropes

Using fully kinetic simulations of the island coalescence problem for a range of system sizes greatly exceeding kinetic scales, the phenomenon of flux pileup in the collisionless regime is demonstrated. While small islands on the scale of λ ≤ 5 ion inertial length (d(i)) coalesce rapidly and do not support significant flux pileup, coalescence of larger islands is characterized by large flux pileup and a weaker time averaged reconnection rate that scales as √(d(i)/λ) while the peak rate remains nearly independent of island size. For the largest islands (λ = 100d(i)), reconnection is bursty and nearly shuts off after the first bounce, reconnecting ~20% of the available flux.