Cause of super-thermal electron heating during magnetotail reconnection

被引：40

作者：

Egedal, J. ^{[1
,2
]}

Le, A. ^{[1
,2
]}

Zhu, Y. ^{[1
,2
]}

Daughton, W. ^{[3
]}

Oieroset, M. ^{[4
]}

Phan, T. ^{[4
]}

Lin, R. P. ^{[4
,6
]}

Eastwood, J. P. ^{[5
]}

机构：

[1] MIT, Dept Phys, Cambridge, MA 02139 USA

[2] MIT, Plasma Sci & Fus Ctr, Cambridge, MA 02139 USA

[3] Los Alamos Natl Lab, Los Alamos, NM 87545 USA

[4] Univ Calif Berkeley, Space Sci Lab, Berkeley, CA 94720 USA

[5] Univ London Imperial Coll Sci Technol & Med, Blackett Lab, London SW7 2AZ, England

[6] Kyung Hee Univ, Sch Space Res, Yongin, South Korea

来源：

GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS | 2010年 / 37卷

关键词：

MAGNETIC RECONNECTION; ENERGETIC ELECTRONS; EARTHS MAGNETOTAIL; ACCELERATION;

D O I：

10.1029/2010GL043487

中图分类号：

P [天文学、地球科学];

学科分类号：

07 ;

摘要：

We present a candidate mechanism for the energization of super-thermal electrons during magnetic reconnection in the Earth's magnetotail. By analyzing in-situ measurements of electron distribution functions we characterize the relative energy gain of the electrons as a function of energy, Delta epsilon(epsilon). For all the events considered the high energy part of Delta epsilon(epsilon) is nearly independent of epsilon. This is the signature of energization in an acceleration potential, Phi(parallel to), which is caused by parallel electric fields in the vicinity of the reconnection region. The same acceleration mechanism is also documented for a kinetic simulation of reconnection. Citation: Egedal, J., A. Le, Y. Zhu, W. Daughton, M. Oieroset, T. Phan, R. P. Lin, and J. P. Eastwood (2010), Cause of super-thermal electron heating during magnetotail reconnection, Geophys. Res. Lett., 37, L10102, doi: 10.1029/2010GL043487.

引用

页数：5

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