In situ observations of multistage electron acceleration driven by magnetic reconnection

With observations of magnetic reconnection and the related bursty bulk flow (BBF) in the magnetotail by Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms mission, we investigate the process of the multistage acceleration of electrons in magnetotail reconnection events, which can be...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of geophysical research. Space physics 2015-08, Vol.120 (8), p.6320-6331
Main Authors: Wu, Mingyu, Huang, Can, Lu, Quanming, Volwerk, Martin, Nakamura, Rumi, Vörös, Zoltán, Zhang, Tielong, Wang, Shui
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acceleration
Adiabatic flow
Bursting
dipolarization front
Electron acceleration
Electron density
Electron energy
Electron flux
Electron temperature
Fluctuations
Geophysics
Ingredients
Magnetic reconnection
Magnetotail reconnection
Magnetotails
Multistage
Temperature
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Summary:With observations of magnetic reconnection and the related bursty bulk flow (BBF) in the magnetotail by Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms mission, we investigate the process of the multistage acceleration of electrons in magnetotail reconnection events, which can be divided into three distinct stages: (1) first, electrons are accelerated in the vicinity of the X line where the electron temperature can be significantly raised while the energetic electron flux with the energy larger than tens of keV has no obvious enhancement. (2) Second, electrons suffer the nonadiabatic acceleration in the pileup region of magnetic reconnection, which results in the obvious enhancement of the energetic electron flux and the small increase of the electron temperature in the earthward flow. (3) At last, the energetic electron flux can be further raised in the BBFs due to adiabatic acceleration mechanisms. Our study indicates that low‐energy electrons can be accelerated to a high energy with a multistage process in magnetic reconnection events, which ranges from the vicinity of the X line to the BBFs. Key Points Electron acceleration in magnetic reconnection is a multistage process Electrons can be accelerated successively in different regions The multistage process is an essential ingredient to produce energetic electron
ISSN:2169-9380
2169-9402
DOI:10.1002/2015JA021165