HR: 0800h
AN: SM51C-0391    [Abstracts]
TI: Computing the Reconnection Rate at the Earth's Magnetopause Using Two Spacecraft Observations
AU: * Fuselier, S A
EM: fuselier@spasci.com
AF: Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center, Dept ADCS, Bldg 255 3251 Hanover St, Palo Alto, CA 94304 United States
AU: Trattner, K H
AF: Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center, Dept ADCS, Bldg 255 3251 Hanover St, Palo Alto, CA 94304 United States
AU: Petrinec, S M
AF: Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center, Dept ADCS, Bldg 255 3251 Hanover St, Palo Alto, CA 94304 United States
AU: Owen, C J
AF: Mullard Space Science Laboratory, Holmbury St. Mary , Dorking, Surrey, RH5 6NT United Kingdom
AU: Reme, H
AF: CESR, BP4346 31028 Toulouse Cedex 4, Toulouse, 31028 France
AB: A new multi-spacecraft technique is introduced which, under some restrictive assumptions and conditions, provides a snapshot of the reconnection inflow velocity into the magnetosphere and an estimate of the distance from the spacecraft to the reconnection site. The two quantities are not obtained independent of one another and additional, independent information is needed to separate them. This new technique is applied to Cluster spacecraft observations at the Earth's magnetopause. Additional Cluster observations and observations from the IMAGE spacecraft are used as independent information to provide an estimate of the distance from the spacecraft to the reconnection site for the event. From this distance estimate and the new multi-spacecraft technique, it is concluded that component reconnection was probably occurring at the magnetopause and that the local inflow velocity was significantly less than 0.1 of the local Alfven speed.
DE: 7835 Magnetic reconnection
DE: 2724 Magnetopause, cusp, and boundary layers
DE: 2784 Solar wind/magnetosphere interactions
SC: SPA-Magnetospheric Physics [SM]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting