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Ion Reflection and transmission during reconnection at the Earth's subsolar magnetopause
Author(s) -
Fuselier S. A.,
Klumpar D. M.,
Shelley E. G.
Publication year - 1991
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 - 10.1029/90gl02676
Subject(s) - magnetopause , magnetosheath , geophysics , physics , magnetic reconnection , solar wind , reflection (computer programming) , magnetosphere , earth's magnetic field , computational physics , magnetic field , quantum mechanics , computer science , programming language
Composition measurements in an accelerated flow event at the Earth's dayside magnetopause show evidence for reflection and transmission of magnetospheric and magnetosheath ion species. Furthermore, a single velocity transformation approximately tangent to the magnetopause surface orders the individual transmitted and reflected ion distributions on both sides of the magnetopause into field‐aligned flow at V A , the local Alfven speed. These observations provide strong evidence for a kinetic description of magnetic reconnection at the magnetopause.