Speaker
Description
With this work we aim at studying with more details the highly multiscale kinetic process of magnetic reconnection occurring at the dayside magnetopause. This process is partially responsible for geomagnetic substorms and capable of producing highly energetic particles. In particular, we present results on the electron dynamics from fully kinetic Particle-in-Cell (PIC) simulations. The ultimate aim is to produce simulation insights for the observations registered by the recently launched Multiscale MagnetoSpheric NASA mission, which features unprecedented space and time resolution instruments.
In a previous work we have studied the electrons behavior during rapid magnetic island coalescence in absence of a guide field. We have ultimately identified three different reconnection regions marked as X-, D- and M-regions according to their local anisotropic and agyrotropic properties (Cazzola et al. 2015).
Here, we extend the analysis to the case with guide field, where the same type of regions are also observed. The electron velocity distributions characterizing these regions are additionally provided for a straightforward identification with observations. Finally, different rendering methods to highlight agyrotropic regions from PIC simulations are addressed, revealing important discrepancies in some relevant areas, such as the separatrices and the inner islands.
