SM44B-04:
Consequences of Kinetic Effects in Nonsymmetric Reconnection Configurations on Large-Scale Dynamical Processes in Magnetosphere and Solar Plasma
Thursday, 18 December 2014: 4:45 PM
Maria M Kuznetsova1, Michael Hesse1, Nicolas Aunai2, Deirdre E Wendel3, Lutz Rastaetter3, Alex Glocer1 and Gabor Toth4, (1)NASA/GSFC, Greenbelt, MD, United States, (2)IRAP, Toulouse, France, (3)NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, United States, (4)Univ Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, United States
Abstract:
One of the major conclusions of the GEM Reconnection Challenge at the dawn of the millennium was that reconnection rate is independent of the electron mass. This finding allowed to reduce the problem to hall-less pair plasma fluid description and reproduce kinetic reconnection rates in large-scale single-fluid simulations by incorporating kinetic non-gyrotropic corrections to the induction equation. It was demonstrated that nongyrotropic effects incorporated into symmetric magnetotail reconnection could significantly alter the global magnetosphere evolution. In this paper we will extend the approach to non-symmetric configurations relevant to planetary magnetospheres and solar corona. We will examine the applicability of the non-gyrotropic fluid approach to nonsymmetric magnetic reconnection and demonstrate consequences of local kinetic effects on global evolution.
