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Detailed Reference Information
Gosling et al. 2006
Gosling, J.T., McComas, D.J., Skoug, R.M. and Smith, C.W. (2006). Magnetic reconnection at the heliospheric current sheet and the formation of closed magnetic field lines in the solar wind. Geophysical Research Letters 33: doi: 10.1029/2006GL027188. issn: 0094-8276.

We have identified a sunward-directed reconnection exhaust in the solar wind at a crossing of the heliospheric current sheet, HCS, by the ACE spacecraft. The exhaust was embedded within an interval of counterstreaming suprathermal electron strahls that provides direct evidence that reconnection produced closed (i.e., doubly connected to the Sun) magnetic field lines sunward of the reconnection site. We suggest that local, quasi-stationary reconnection at the HCS may, in general, be an important source of closed magnetic field lines often observed in the vicinity of the HCS.

BACKGROUND DATA FILES

Abstract

Keywords
Interplanetary Physics, Interplanetary magnetic fields, Interplanetary Physics, Solar wind plasma, Space Plasma Physics, Electrostatic structures, Space Plasma Physics, Mathematical and numerical techniques (0500, 3200)
Journal
Geophysical Research Letters
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Publisher
American Geophysical Union
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