FG: Magnetic Reconnection in the Age of the Heliophysics System Observatory

Dates: 2018 – 2024
Leaders: Rick Wilder, Shan Wang, Michael Shay, and Anton Artemyev
Research Area: Primary – GSM, Secondary – None

Topic Description

Magnetic reconnection is a fundamental process in plasma physics that changes the topological configuration of a magnetic field, and converts stored magnetic energy into kinetic energy and heat. It is an important driver of magnetospheric activity. Two important regions of study include the dayside magnetopause and the magnetospheric tail. At the dayside, the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) frozen into the solar wind bulk flow can reconnect with the geomagnetic field, which drives large-scale plasma convection in the magnetosphere and ionosphere. In the geomagnetic tail, lobe magnetic field lines reconnect and release stored magnetic energy, which drives activity in the inner magnetosphere as well as the auroral ionosphere. Magnetic reconnection has also been observed at high latitudes during non-southward IMF, and within Kelvin-Helmholtz vortices on the magnetospheric flanks. It is therefore highly important to understand and model this fundamental process in order to model geospace as a whole. The proposed focus group will investigate magnetic reconnection in the Earth’s magnetosphere, with special focus on the synergy of increased modeling and observational capabilities that have only become available in the past few years, and were only beginning to be included in discussions in the magnetic reconnection focus group that ends this year (2017). The broad goals of the focus group are to understand (1) The role of turbulence in magnetic reconnection, (2) how reconnection behaves when expanded beyond 2-D laminar models, (3) where the energy dissipation in reconnection occurs, and (4) how local physics of magnetic reconnection depends on and determine the global global plasma and magnetic field configurations. We anticipate having strong ties with other focus groups that study phenomena closely associated with magnetic reconnection.

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