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Dynamics of Electron-Scale Current Sheet Equilibria based on MMS Observations
  • David L. Newman,
  • Giovanni Lapenta,
  • Martin V. Goldman
David L. Newman
University of Colorado, Boulder CO

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Giovanni Lapenta
KU Leuven, Belgium
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Martin V. Goldman
University of Colorado, Boulder CO
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Abstract

The vicinity of the electron diffusion region (EDR) at the core of magnetic reconnection is frequently characterized by agyrotropic electron velocity distributions such as perpendicular velocity-space crescents [J. L. Burch et al., Science, DOI:10.1126/science.aaf2939 (2016)]. Although the evolving EDR is not itself an equilibrium state, its evolution may be slow on electron-cyclotron time scales. When this is the case, homogeneous equilibrium models are limited in their ability to model dynamical processes, such as instabilities and wave generation, in the presence of agyrotropic populations. In order to better study these processes, we initiate implicit PIC simulations with inhomogeneous kinetic equilibria built upon agyrotropic electron velocity distributions measured by the FPI spectrometers on MMS. The methodology involves the following elements: 1. Modeling the observed agyrotropic (e.g., crescent) and background plasma distributions 2. Numerically evaluating self-consistent inhomogeneous equilibria – including anisotropy 3. Initializing 1D, 2D, and 3D PIC simulations with the equilibria 4. Evaluating the simulation output for instabilities and the persistence of the crescents Particle tracing and other visualization tools will be employed to illustrate the underlying dynamics of particles and fields – and their interactions.