Local and global impacts of magnetic reconnection at coronal and heliospheric current sheets

Abstract:

Recent works have shown the ubiquity of magnetic reconnection in the solar wind. It occurs at current sheets of various types. Although less frequent, its occurrence at the heliospheric current sheet (HCS) and at the front current sheet of coronal mass ejections (CME) is of particular interest. At the HCS, the large-scale topology that follows from reconnection can be studied in detail using suprathermal electron properties. In the second case, the occurrence of reconnection has large-scale implications for the structure of CMEs. Indeed, if reconnection occurs in sufficiently large amounts at the front of CMEs during their propagation from the Sun to Earth, we show that the resulting magnetic flux erosion has a direct and strong impact on their geo-effectiveness.