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From 15 February 2004, 20:00 UT to 18 February 2004, 01:00 UT, the solarwind density dropped to extremely low values (about 0.35 cm−3).On 17 February, between 17:45 UT and 18:10 UT, the CLUSTER spacecraft crossthe dayside magnetopause several times at a large radial distance of about16 RE.During each of these crossings, the spacecraft detect high speed plasma jetsin the dayside magnetopause and boundary layer. These observations are madeduring a period of southward and dawnward Interplanetary Magnetic Field(IMF). The magnetic shear across the local magnetopause is ~90°and the magnetosheath beta is very low (~0.15). We evidence the presence of a magnetic field of a few nT along themagnetopause normal. We also show that the plasma jets, accelerated up to600 km/s, satisfy the tangential stress balance.These findings strongly suggest that the accelerated jets are due tomagnetic reconnection between interplanetary and terrestrial magnetic fieldlines northward of the satellites.This is confirmed by the analysis of the ion distribution function thatexhibits the presence of D shaped distributions and of a reflected ionpopulation as predicted by theory.A quantitative analysis of the reflected ion population reveals that thereconnection process lasts about 30 min in a reconnection site locatedat a very large distance of several tens RE from the Clusterspacecraft.We also estimate the magnetopause motion and thickness during this event. This paper gives the first experimental study of magnetic reconnectionduring such rare periods of very low solar wind density. The results arediscussed in the frame of magnetospheric response to extremely low solarwind density conditions

A case study of dayside reconnection under extremely low solar wind density conditions