Related papers: Thin current sheet behind the dipolarization front
The magnetopause is a current sheet forming the boundary between the geomagnetic field on one side and the shocked solar wind on the other side. This paper discusses properties of the low-latitude dawn and dusk flanks of the magnetopause.…
Magnetic reconnection X-lines have been observed to be more common duskward of midnight. Thin current sheets have also been postulated to be a necessary precondition for reconnection onset. We take advantage of the MMS tetrahedral formation…
We analyze a magnetotail reconnection onset event on 3 July 2017 that was observed under otherwise quiescent magnetospheric conditions by a fortuitous conjunction of six space and ground-based observatories. The study investigates the…
Spacecraft data reveals a nonuniform ambipolar electric field transverse to the magnetic field in a thin magnetotail current sheet that leads to intense ExB velocity shear and non-gyrotropic particle distributions. The ExB drift far exceeds…
Many in-situ spacecraft observations have demonstrated that magnetic reconnection in the Earth's magnetotail is largely controlled by the pre-reconnection current sheet configuration. One of the most important thin current sheet…
MESSENGER has observed a lot of dawn-dusk asymmetries in Mercury's magnetotail, such as the asymmetries of the cross-tail current sheet thickness and the occurrence of flux ropes, dipolarization events and energetic electron injections. In…
Magnetic reconnection is a fundamental physical process in various astrophysical, space, and laboratory environments. Many pieces of evidence for magnetic reconnection have been uncovered. However, its specific processes that could be…
Kink-like flapping motions of current sheets are commonly observed in the magnetotail. Such oscillations have periods of a few minutes down to a few seconds and they propagate toward the flanks of the plasma sheet. Here, we report a…
The magnetotail current sheet's spatial configuration and stability control the onset of magnetic reconnection - the driving process for magnetospheric substorms. The near-Earth current sheet has been thoroughly investigated by numerous…
Recent results of numerical magnetohydrodynamic simulations suggest that in collisionless space plasmas turbulence can spontaneously generate thin current sheets. These coherent structures can partially explain intermittency and the…
The elongated bright structures above solar flare loops are suggested to be current sheets, where magnetic reconnection takes place. Observations have revealed various characteristics of the current sheet; however, their physical origin…
Using 3D particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations, we study magnetic reconnection with the x-line being spatially confined in the current direction. We include thick current layers to prevent reconnection at two ends of a thin current sheet that…
We report on new spectro-polarimetric measurements with simultaneous filter imaging observation, revealing the frequent appearance of polarization signals indicating high-speed, probably supersonic, downflows that are associated with at…
The terrestrial magnetopause is the boundary that shields the Earth's magnetosphere on one side from the shocked solar wind and its embedded interplanetary magnetic field on the other side. In this paper, we show observations from two of…
The twisted local magnetic field at the front or rear regions of the magnetic clouds (MCs) associated with interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs) is often nearly opposite to the direction of the ambient interplanetary magnetic field…
Cold fronts (CFs) - density and temperature plasma discontinuities - are ubiquitous in cool cores of galaxy clusters, where they appear as X-ray brightness edges in the intracluster medium, nearly concentric with the cluster center. We…
Collisionless space plasma turbulence can generate reconnecting thin current sheets as suggested by recent results of numerical magnetohydrodynamic simulations. The MMS mission provides the first serious opportunity to check if small…
Aims: We investigate the temporal evolution of magnetic flux emergence in the quiet Sun atmosphere close to disk center. Methods: We combine high-resolution SoHO/MDI magnetograms with TRACE observations taken in the 1216 {\AA} channel in…
We investigate kilometer-scale field-aligned currents that were detected both in the magnetospheric cusp at a few Earth radii altitude and in the ionosphere by satellites that were, according to the Tsyganenko model, within a few tens of…
We analyze an event in front of the bow shock observed by Cluster spacecraft on 22.02.2006. This event has many attributes of Hot Flow Anomaly at early stage of development including strong upstream beam and disturbed magnetic profile with…