Structure of the electron diffusion region in magnetic reconnection with small guide fields

Observations in the Earth's magnetotail and kinetic simulations of magnetic reconnection have shown high electron pressure anisotropy in the inflow of electron diffusion regions. This anisotropy has been accurately accounted for in a new fluid closure for collisionless reconnection. By tracing electron orbits in the fields taken from particle-in-cell simulations, the electron distribution function in the diffusion region is reconstructed at enhanced resolutions. For antiparallel reconnection, this reveals its highly structured nature, with striations corresponding to the number of times an electron has been reflected within the region, and exposes the origin of gradients in the electron pressure tensor important for momentum balance. The addition of a guide field changes the nature of the electron distributions, and the differences are accounted for by studying the motion of single particles in the field geometry. Finally, the geometry of small guide field reconnection is shown to be highly sensitive to the mass ratio.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2012

Author dc:creator

• Ng, Jonathan, S.B. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Jan Egedal-Pedersen.

• Physics.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/78521

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/78521