Premium
Average profiles of energetic and thermal electrons in the magnetotail reconnection regions
Author(s) -
Imada S.,
Hoshino M.,
Mukai T.
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2005gl022594
Subject(s) - plasmoid , physics , magnetic reconnection , electron , outflow , plasma sheet , plasma , flux (metallurgy) , atomic physics , electron temperature , thermal , geophysics , magnetosphere , materials science , nuclear physics , meteorology , metallurgy
We study plasma heating and acceleration around magnetic reconnection region by using GEOTAIL data. We carry out the superposed analysis of thermal temperature and energetic electrons flux as a function of distance from X‐type neutral line, for both the near‐Earth and the distant magnetotail. It is found that the enhanced energetic flux and high temperature regions are located around reconnection outflow region downstream away from the center of the X‐type neutral region. Those heated and accelerated regions are symmetric in both of the tail‐ and earth‐ward flow regions in the distant magnetotail, while in the near‐Earth magnetotail more energetic electrons are preferentially observed in the earthward flow region. In addition, we also study electron heating and acceleration during the passage of plasmoid, which may correspond to O‐type neutral line. We find the hot and energetic electrons behind the core of plasmoid but slightly away from the central plasma sheet.