Figure 2
From: Topology of turbulence within collisionless plasma reconnection
MMS 3 observations of the reconnection region. Time series of in situ observations of the reconnection region transit seen by MMS 3, which leads MMS 1 and 2 in the encounter. The EDR is indicated with blue shading on all panels. Green shading indicates the time interval in which at least one spacecraft samples the EDR. We will focus on the magnetic topology within these regions in Figs. 3 and 4. Reading from top to bottom, the Figure plots: in panel (a) magnetic field magnitude (black), the magnetic null is at 19-Sep-2015 at 07:43:30.488, used throughout to define \(t=0\) indicated by the yellow triangle. Electric field component \(E_N\) (blue) in the event LMN coordinates defined in35 (blue) shows a negative excursion which locates the EDR35. Panel (b) plots band pass filtered magnetic field components (blue) and magnetic field magnitude (black) within frequency range 64–256 Hz; the dashed red vertical lines mark the outer extent of large magnetic field fluctuations. Panel (c) plots the same quantity as panel (b) calculated for the electric field fluctuations. Panel (d) plots electron flow speed (blue) which peaks within the EDR, and ion flow speed (black) which is approximately constant, both are normalised to the downstream Alfvén speed. Panel (e) plots electron heating \(\varvec{j} \cdot \varvec{E}_e\) which peaks at the edges of the EDR. Panel (f) plots suprathermal electron flux, \(\mathcal {E}_e\), defined as the differential electron flux integrated over all angles and over energy range 800–\(1\times 10^4\) eV, which peaks within the EDR. Panel (g) plots bulk electron temperature anisotropy, \(\alpha _e\), which peaks coincide with enhanced magnetic fluctuations. Panel (h) shows the main invariants, Q and R, of the MFGT.
