Parallel Electric Fields, Magnetic Reconnection, Particle Acceleration, and Turbulence
Friday, October 2, 2015: 10:30 AM
Robert Ergun1, Katherine Goodrich2, Frederick D Wilder2, Andrew Paul Sturner3, Justin Holmes3, Julia E Stawarz2, Roy B Torbert4, James L Burch5, Per-Arne Lindqvist6, Yuri V Khotyaintsev7 and Robert J Strangeway8, (1)Univ Colorado, Boulder, CO, United States, (2)University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO, United States, (3)Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, Boulder, CO, United States, (4)Univ New Hampshire, Durham, NH, United States, (5)Southwest Research Institute San Antonio, San Antonio, TX, United States, (6)KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden, (7)IRF Swedish Institute of Space Physics Uppsala, Uppsala, Sweden, (8)Univ California, Los Angeles, CA, United States
Abstract:
Three of the frontiers in space plasma physics research involve magnetic reconnection, charged particle acceleration, and turbulence. These three universal plasma processes, targeted by the Magnetosheric Multiscale (MMS) mission, can be influenced or controlled by parallel electric fields. Parallel electric fields are a necessary condition for magnetic reconnection with non-zero guide field and are ultimately responsible for a global, topological reconfiguration of a magnetic field. Direct particle acceleration by parallel electric fields is well established in the auroral region. Recent observations of double layers in the magnetotail by THEMIS and the Van Allan Probes suggest that acceleration by parallel electric fields may be significant in many regions of the magnetosphere. THEMIS observations also indicate that some of the largest parallel electric fields are found in regions of strong field-aligned currents associated with turbulence, suggesting a highly non-linear dissipation mechanism. The MMS satellites have the an accurate three three-dimensional electric field measurement, which can identify parallel electric fields as low as 1 mV/m at four adjacent locations. This paper aims to present preliminary observations of parallel electric fields from MMS and possibly provide an early interpretation.
