Category Archives: papers

Energy budgets in collisionless magnetic reconnection: Ion heating and bulk acceleration

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Energy budgets in collisionless magnetic reconnection: Ion heating and bulk acceleration (ADS Link, DOI)

Aunai, N.; Belmont, G.; Smets, R.

This paper investigates the energy transfer in the process of collisionless antiparallel magnetic reconnection. Using two-dimensional hybrid simulations, we measure the increase of the bulk and thermal kinetic energies and compare it to the loss of magnetic energy through a contour surrounding the ion decoupling region. It is shown, for both symmetric and asymmetric configurations, that the loss of magnetic energy is not equally partitioned between heating and acceleration. The heating is found to be dominant and the partition ratio depends on the asymptotic parameters, and future investigations will be needed to understand this dependence.

The proton pressure tensor as a new proxy of the proton decoupling region in collisionless magnetic reconnection

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The proton pressure tensor as a new proxy of the proton decoupling region in collisionless magnetic reconnection (ADS link, DOI)

Aunai, N.; Retinò, A.; Belmont, G.; Smets, R.; Lavraud, B.; Vaivads, A.

Cluster data is analyzed to test the proton pressure tensor variations as a proxy of the proton decoupling region in collisionless magnetic reconnection. The Hall electric potential well created in the proton decoupling region results in bounce trajectories of the protons which appears as a characteristic variation of one of the in-plane off-diagonal components of the proton pressure tensor in this region. The event studied in this paper is found to be consistent with classical Hall field signatures with a possible 20% guide field. Moreover, correlations between this pressure tensor component, magnetic field and bulk flow are proposed and validated, together with the expected counterstreaming proton distribution functions.