Advanced Methods for Analyzing in-Situ Observations of Magnetic Reconnection
Hiroshi Hasegawa, M. R. Argall, N. Aunai, R. Bandyopadhyay, Naoki Bessho, I. J. Cohen, R. E. Denton, J. Dorelli, J. Egedal, S. A. Fuselier, Philippe Garnier, V. Génot, D. B. Graham, Kyoung‐Joo Hwang, Y. V. Khotyaintsev, Daniil Korovinskiy, B. Lavraud, Quentin Lenouvel, T. C. Li, Yi‐Hsin Liu, B. Michotte de Welle, Takuma Nakamura, D. S. Payne, S. M. Petrinec, Yi Qi, A. C. Rager, P. H. Reiff, J. M. Schroeder, J. R. Shuster, M. I. Sitnov, G. K. Stephens, M. Swisdak, Anmin Tian, R. B. Torbert, K. J. Trattner, Seiji Zenitani
Abstract
There is ample evidence for magnetic reconnection in the solar system, but it is a nontrivial task to visualize, to determine the proper approaches and frames to study, and in turn to elucidate the physical processes at work in reconnection regions from in-situ measurements of plasma particles and electromagnetic fields. Here an overview is given of a variety of single- and multi-spacecraft data analysis techniques that are key to revealing the context of in-situ observations of magnetic reconnection in space and for detecting and analyzing the diffusion regions where ions and/or electrons are demagnetized. We focus on recent advances in the era of the Magnetospheric Multiscale mission, which has made electron-scale, multi-point measurements of magnetic reconnection in and around Earth's magnetosphere.