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GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS,
VOL. 34,
L15110,
4 PP., 2007
doi:10.1029/2007GL030706
Prevalence of magnetic reconnection at small field shear angles in the solar wind
Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA
Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, California, USA
Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, California, USA
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA
A study of magnetic reconnection exhausts observed at high (3-s) temporal resolution by the plasma and magnetic field experiments on Wind during March 2006 reveals, unexpectedly, that reconnection in the solar wind occurs most frequently at field shear angles <90°. Owing largely to the relatively low reconnection rates associated with small field shear angles, the corresponding exhausts tend to be quite narrow (<4 × 104 km) and typically are convected past the spacecraft by the solar wind flow in <100 s. During March 2006 Wind encountered reconnection exhausts at an average rate of ∼1.5 events/day, a factor of ∼36 greater than has been inferred from previous observations, largely made at considerably lower (∼1-min) temporal resolution.
Received 16 May 2007; accepted 18 July 2007; published 15 August 2007.
Citation: (2007), Prevalence of magnetic reconnection at small field shear angles in the solar wind, Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L15110, doi:10.1029/2007GL030706.
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