Magnetospheric Multiscale Satellite Observations of Parallel Electron Acceleration in Magnetic Field Reconnection by Fermi Reflection from Time Domain Structures

F. s. Mozer (1) , O. a. Agapitov (1) , A. Artemyev (2, 3) , J. l. Burch (4) , R. e. Ergun (5) , B. l. Giles (6) , D. Mourenas (7) , R. b. Torbert (8) , T. d. Phan , I. Vasko (3)

1 SSL - Space Sciences Laboratory [Berkeley]
2 IGPP - Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics [Los Angeles]
3 RAS - Russian Academy of Sciences [Moscow]
4 SwRI - Southwest Research Institute [San Antonio]
5 LASP - Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics [Boulder]
6 GSFC - NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
7 LPC2E - Laboratoire de Physique et Chimie de l'Environnement et de l'Espace
8 UNH - University of New Hampshire

The same time domain structures (TDS) have been observed on two Magnetospheric Multiscale Satellites near Earth’s dayside magnetopause. These TDS, traveling away from the X line along the magnetic field at 4000  km/s, accelerated field-aligned ∼5  eV electrons to ∼200  eV by a single Fermi reflection of the electrons by these overtaking barriers. Additionally, the TDS contained both positive and negative potentials, so they were a mixture of electron holes and double layers. They evolve in ∼10  km of space or 7 ms of time and their spatial scale size is 10–20 km, which is much larger than the electron gyroradius (<1  km) or the electron inertial length (4 km at the observation point, less nearer the X line).

Domains: Sciences of the Universe [physics]

F. s. Mozer, O. a. Agapitov, A. Artemyev, J. l. Burch, R. e. Ergun, et al.. Magnetospheric Multiscale Satellite Observations of Parallel Electron Acceleration in Magnetic Field Reconnection by Fermi Reflection from Time Domain Structures. Physical Review Letters, 2016, 116 (14), ⟨10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.145101⟩. ⟨insu-03342784⟩