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Detailed Reference Information
Phan et al. 2006
Phan, T.D., Hasegawa, H., Fujimoto, M., Oieroset, M., Mukai, T., Lin, R.P. and Paterson, W. (2006). Simultaneous Geotail and Wind observations of reconnection at the subsolar and tail flank magnetopause. Geophysical Research Letters 33: doi: 10.1029/2006GL025756. issn: 0094-8276.

We report a fortuitous two-spacecraft conjunction when Geotail and Wind observed the occurrence of reconnection simultaneously at the subsolar and dawn tail flank magnetopause during stable By dominated IMF. Furthermore, bi-directional jets were observed by Geotail which indicate the presence of an X-line in the subsolar region. These observations are consistent with the presence of a tilted X-line hinged near the subsolar point and spanning the entire dayside (from subsolar to XGSE = -10 RE) magnetopause, as expected from component reconnection. In addition, our observations do not reveal any thickening of the boundary layer down the flanks, the plasma boundary layer being confined to the reconnecting magnetopause current layer. This suggests that reconnection dominates over diffusive entry or Kelvin-Helmholtz instability at the low latitude magnetopause even when the IMF clock angle is 90¿.

BACKGROUND DATA FILES

Abstract

Keywords
Magnetospheric Physics, Magnetic reconnection (7526, 7835), Magnetospheric Physics, Magnetopause and boundary layers, Magnetospheric Physics, Solar wind/magnetosphere interactions
Journal
Geophysical Research Letters
http://www.agu.org/journals/gl/
Publisher
American Geophysical Union
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