HR: 14:55h
AN: SM13C-05    [Abstracts]
TI: Three-Spacecraft Detections of a Magnetic Reconnection X-Line Extending More Than 390 Earth Radii in the Solar Wind
AU: * Phan, T D
EM: phan@ssl.berkeley.edu
AF: UC Berkeley, Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 United States
AU: Gosling, J T
EM: jack.gosling@lasp.colorado.edu
AF: LASP, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80303 United States
AU: Davis, M S
EM: mattd@ssl.berkeley.edu
AF: UC Berkeley, Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 United States
AU: Skoug, R M
EM: rskoug@lanl.gov
AF: Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, MS D466, Los Alamos, NM 87545 United States
AU: Oieroset, M
EM: oieroset@ssl.berkeley.edu
AF: UC Berkeley, Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 United States
AU: Lin, R P
EM: rlin@ssl.berkeley.edu
AF: UC Berkeley, Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 United States
AU: Lepping, R
EM: Ron.Lepping@gsfc.nasa.gov
AF: NASA/GSFC, Laboratory for Extraterrestrial Physics, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771 United States
AU: McComas, D J
EM: DMcComas@swri.edu
AF: Southwest Research Institute, Space Science and Engineering Division, Southwest Research Institute, P. O. Drawer 28510, San Antonio, TX 78228 United States
AU: Smith, C W
EM: Charles.Smith@unh.edu
AF: UNH, Department of Physics and Space Science Center, University of New Hampshire. Room 207 Morse Hall, 30 College Road, Durham, NH 03824 United States
AU: Reme, H
EM: Henri.Reme@cesr.fr
AF: CERS, Centre d'Etude Spatiale des Rayonnements, BP 4346, Toulouse, 31029 France
AU: Balogh, A
EM: a.balogh@imperial.ac.uk
AF: Imperial College, Space and Atmospheric Physics Group, Imperial College, London, SW7 2BZ United Kingdom
AB: Magnetic reconnection in a current sheet is a magnetic to particle energy conversion process that is important in many space and astrophysical contexts. It is not presently known whether reconnection is fundamentally a process that can occur over an extended region in space or whether it is patchy and unpredictable in nature. Here we report Wind, ACE, and Cluster observations of accelerated flow associated with reconnection in a current sheet embedded in the solar wind flow where the reconnection X-line extended at least 390 RE (or 2.5 million km). Observations of this and 27 similar events imply that reconnection is fundamentally large scale. Patchy and transient reconnection often reported in the magnetosphere is likely to be a geophysical effect associated with boundary conditions rather than a fundamental property of reconnection. Our observations also reveal, somewhat surprisingly, that reconnection can operate in a quasi-steady-state manner even when undriven by the external flow.
DE: 2723 Magnetic reconnection (7526, 7835)
DE: 7845 Particle acceleration
DE: 7846 Plasma energization
SC: SPA-Magnetospheric Physics [SM]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005