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Currents and associated electron scattering and bouncing near the diffusion region at Earth's magnetopause

  • B. Lavraud*
  • , Y. C. Zhang
  • , Y. Vernisse
  • , D. J. Gershman
  • , J. Dorelli
  • , P. A. Cassak
  • , J. Dargent
  • , C. Pollock
  • , B. Giles
  • , N. Aunai
  • , M. Argall
  • , L. Avanov
  • , A. Barrie
  • , J. Burch
  • , M. Chandler
  • , L. J. Chen
  • , G. Clark
  • , I. Cohen
  • , V. Coffey
  • , J. P. Eastwood
  • J. Egedal, S. Eriksson, R. Ergun, C. J. Farrugia, S. A. Fuselier, V. Génot, D. Graham, E. Grigorenko, H. Hasegawa, C. Jacquey, I. Kacem, Y. Khotyaintsev, E. Macdonald, W. Magnes, A. Marchaudon, B. Mauk, T. E. Moore, T. Mukai, R. Nakamura, W. Paterson, E. Penou, T. D. Phan, A. Rager, A. Retino, Z. J. Rong, C. T. Russell, Y. Saito, J. A. Sauvaud, S. J. Schwartz, C. Shen, S. Smith, R. Strangeway, S. Toledo-Redondo, R. Torbert, D. L. Turner, S. Wang, S. Yokota
*Corresponding author for this work
  • Université de Toulouse
  • CNRS
  • Chinese Academy of Sciences
  • NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
  • University of Maryland, College Park
  • West Virginia University
  • Laboratoire de Physique des Plasmas
  • University of New Hampshire
  • Millenium Engineering and Integration Company
  • Southwest Research Institute
  • NASA Marshall Space Flight Center
  • Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
  • Imperial College London
  • University of Wisconsin-Madison
  • University of Colorado Boulder
  • Swedish Institute of Space Physics
  • Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences
  • JAXA Institute of Space and Astronautical Science
  • Austrian Academy of Sciences
  • University of California at Berkeley
  • Catholic University of America
  • University of California at Los Angeles
  • Harbin Institute of Technology Shenzhen
  • ESAC/ESA
  • Aerospace Corporation

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Based on high-resolution measurements from NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale mission, we present the dynamics of electrons associated with current systems observed near the diffusion region of magnetic reconnection at Earth's magnetopause. Using pitch angle distributions (PAD) and magnetic curvature analysis, we demonstrate the occurrence of electron scattering in the curved magnetic field of the diffusion region down to energies of 20 eV. We show that scattering occurs closer to the current sheet as the electron energy decreases. The scattering of inflowing electrons, associated with field-aligned electrostatic potentials and Hall currents, produces a new population of scattered electrons with broader PAD which bounce back and forth in the exhaust. Except at the center of the diffusion region the two populations are collocated and appear to behave adiabatically: the inflowing electron PAD focuses inward (toward lower magnetic field), while the bouncing population PAD gradually peaks at 90° away from the center (where it mirrors owing to higher magnetic field and probable field-aligned potentials).

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)3042-3050
Number of pages9
JournalGeophysical Research Letters
Volume43
Issue number7
DOIs
StatePublished - 16 Apr 2016
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Hall fields
  • acceleration
  • electrons
  • magnetic reconnection
  • scattering

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