Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2008

Publication Title

Annales Geophysicae

Department

Thayer School of Engineering

Abstract

We have applied a new reconstruction method (Sonnerup and Teh, 2008), based on the ideal single-fluid MHD equations in a steady-state, two-dimensional geometry, to a reconnection event observed by the Cluster-3 (C3) space- craft on 5 July 2001, 06:23 UT, at the dawn-side Northern- Hemisphere magnetopause. The event has been previously studied by use of Grad-Shafranov (GS) reconstruction, per- formed in the deHoffmann-Teller frame, and using the as- sumption that the flow effects were either negligible or the flow was aligned with the magnetic field. Our new method allows the reconstruction to be performed in the frame of reference moving with the reconnection site (the X-line). In the event studied, this motion is tailward/equatorward at 140 km/s. The principal result of the study is that the new method functions well, generating a magnetic field map that is qualitatively similar to those obtained in the earlier GS- based reconstructions but now includes the reconnection site itself. In comparison with the earlier map by Hasegawa et al. (2004), our new map has a slightly improved ability (cc=0.979 versus cc=0.975) to predict the fields measured by the other three Cluster spacecraft, at distances from C3 rang- ing from 2132 km (C1) to 2646 km (C4). The new field map indicates the presence of a magnetic X-point, located some 5300 km tailward/equatorward of C3 at the time of its traver- sal of the magnetopause. In the immediate vicinity of the X-point, the ideal-MHD assumption breaks down, i.e. resis- tive and/or other effects should be included. We have cir- cumvented this problem by an ad-hoc procedure in which we allow the axial part of convection electric field to be non- constant near the reconnection site. The new reconstruction method also provides a map of the velocity field, in which the inflow into the wedge of reconnected field lines and the plasma jet within it can be seen, and maps of the electric po- tential and of the electric current distribution.

DOI

10.5194/angeo-26-2673-2008

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