SM51A-2531
Search For Secondary Magnetic Islands At The Dayside Magnetopause
Friday, 18 December 2015
Poster Hall (Moscone South)
Sarah K. Vines, Southwest Research Institute San Antonio, San Antonio, TX, United States, Stephen A Fuselier, Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, TX, United States, Karlheinz J Trattner, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, Boulder, CO, United States and Steven M Petrinec, Lockheed Martin Corporation, Arlington, VA, United States
Abstract:
Several simulations of magnetic reconnection predict the formation of secondary magnetic islands, or O-lines, forming and propagating out through the reconnection exhaust region. However, only a few observations of secondary magnetic islands at the Earth’s magnetopause have been identified and analyzed to date. In order to statistically determine the frequency of secondary islands at the magnetopause, crossings near reconnection sites at the dayside magnetopause by Cluster (Cluster 1, 3, and 4) from 2001 – 2009 are examined in search of these magnetic islands. Using the maximum magnetic shear model as a guide for the distance to the reconnection site, 29 magnetopause crossings within 1.5 RE of the predicted reconnection site are examined. The occurrence of encountering an island structure in the reconnection exhaust is analyzed as a function of magnetic shear angles and local plasma conditions to determine how the type of reconnection, anti-parallel or component, affects their formation.
