TY - JOUR

T1 - A new model for the electron pressure nongyrotropy in the outer electron diffusion region

AU - Divin, A.

AU - Semenov, V.

AU - Korovinskiy, D.

AU - Markidis, S.

AU - Deca, J.

AU - Olshevsky, V.

AU - Lapenta, G.

N1 - Funding Information: This research was supported by Russian Science Foundation (RNF14-17-00072). Simulations were conducted using resources provided by the Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing (SNIC) at KTH, Stockholm, Sweden, grants m.2014-1-176 and 2014-8-38. Test simulations were performed at Lomonosov supercomputing facility (Moscow State University), projects 1576 and 1658. Access to simulation data can be provided upon request. Publisher Copyright: ©2016. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved. Copyright: Copyright 2018 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

PY - 2016/10/28

Y1 - 2016/10/28

N2 - We present a new model to describe the electron pressure nongyrotropy inside the electron diffusion region (EDR) in an antiparallel magnetic reconnection scenario. A combination of particle-in-cell simulations and analytical estimates is used to identify such a component of the electron pressure tensor in the rotated coordinates, which is nearly invariant along the outflow direction between the X line and the electron remagnetization points in the outer EDR. It is shown that the EDR two-scale structure (inner and outer parts) is formed due to superposition of the nongyrotropic meandering electron population and gyrotropic electron population with large anisotropy parallel to the magnetic field upstream of the EDR. Inside the inner EDR the influence of the pressure anisotropy can largely be ignored. In the outer EDR, a thin electron layer with electron flow speed exceeding the E × B drift velocity is supported by large-momentum flux produced by the electron pressure anisotropy upstream of the EDR. We find that this fast electron exhaust flow with |Ve×B|>|E| is in fact a constituent part of the EDR, a finding which will steer the interpretation of the Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission (MMS) data.

AB - We present a new model to describe the electron pressure nongyrotropy inside the electron diffusion region (EDR) in an antiparallel magnetic reconnection scenario. A combination of particle-in-cell simulations and analytical estimates is used to identify such a component of the electron pressure tensor in the rotated coordinates, which is nearly invariant along the outflow direction between the X line and the electron remagnetization points in the outer EDR. It is shown that the EDR two-scale structure (inner and outer parts) is formed due to superposition of the nongyrotropic meandering electron population and gyrotropic electron population with large anisotropy parallel to the magnetic field upstream of the EDR. Inside the inner EDR the influence of the pressure anisotropy can largely be ignored. In the outer EDR, a thin electron layer with electron flow speed exceeding the E × B drift velocity is supported by large-momentum flux produced by the electron pressure anisotropy upstream of the EDR. We find that this fast electron exhaust flow with |Ve×B|>|E| is in fact a constituent part of the EDR, a finding which will steer the interpretation of the Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission (MMS) data.

KW - electron diffusion

KW - nongyrotropy

KW - reconnection

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84992346118&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1002/2016GL070763

DO - 10.1002/2016GL070763

M3 - Article

VL - 43

SP - 10,565-10,573

JO - Geophysical Research Letters

JF - Geophysical Research Letters

SN - 0094-8276

IS - 20

ER -