Advanced methods for analyzing in-situ observations of magnetic reconnection

TL;DR

This paper reviews advanced techniques for analyzing in-situ spacecraft data to better understand magnetic reconnection, emphasizing recent multi-spacecraft methods enabled by the Magnetospheric Multiscale mission.

Contribution

It provides an overview of innovative data analysis methods for magnetic reconnection, highlighting recent advances with multi-spacecraft measurements at electron scales.

Findings

Enhanced detection of diffusion regions in reconnection

Improved visualization of plasma and field interactions

Identification of electron-scale reconnection processes

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.