SM43A-01
Ion Species-Dependent Effects in Magnetic Reconnection: MMS Hot Plasma Composition Analyzer (HPCA) Initial Results
Thursday, 17 December 2015: 13:40
2018 (Moscone West)
Stephen A Fuselier1,2, James L Burch3, Don E George3, Roman Garcia Gomez1, William S Lewis1, Barry Mauk4, Rumi Nakamura5, Nikolaos Paschalidis6, Steven M Petrinec7, Craig J Pollock8, Roy B Torbert9, Karlheinz J Trattner10, Sarah K. Vines3, James M Webster1 and David T Young1, (1)Southwest Research Institute San Antonio, San Antonio, TX, United States, (2)University of Texas at San Antonio, Department of Physics & Astronomy, San Antonio, TX, United States, (3)Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, TX, United States, (4)Applied Physics Laboratory Johns Hopkins, Laurel, MD, United States, (5)Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria, (6)NASA/GSFC-Heliophysics Sci, Greenbelt, MD, United States, (7)Lockheed Martin Corporation, Arlington, VA, United States, (8)NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Heliophysics Sci. Div., Greenbelt, MD, United States, (9)University of New Hampshire Main Campus, Durham, NH, United States, (10)Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, Boulder, CO, United States
Abstract:
Magnetic reconnection at the Earth’s magnetopause mixes plasmas of magnetospheric and solar wind origin. These plasmas are distinguishable by their different ion composition, e.g., O+, He+ for the ionosphere/magnetosphere and He2+ for the solar wind. The Hot Plasma Composition Analyzer (HPCA) has a new and unique capability for separating “thermal” (~ 1 keV/e) He2+, He+, and O+ distributions from the dominant, high flux H+ distribution in magnetopause boundary layers. With this capability, HPCA measures full 3-D ion distributions in 10 seconds, which is the highest time resolution of any mass-resolved measurements at the magnetopause. This talk focuses on ion species-dependent effects of magnetic reconnection observed during some of the first MMS encounters with the Earth’s magnetopause.
