One of the open questions about the interaction of Earth's magnetosphere with the solar wind is how plasma is transferred from the solar wind into the magnetosphere. Magnetic reconnection at the dayside magnetopause is thought to play an essential role in this process, shaping Earth's plasma sheet as well as driving geoeffective space weather in the inner magnetosphere. This project is three-year research program to attack the problem of solar wind plasma entry via dayside magnetic reconnection. There are two paradigms for magnetic reconnection; one postulates that reconnection takes place in regions where the interplanetary magnetic field is oppositely directed to the Earth's magnetic field (anti-parallel reconnection) and the other postulates that reconnection occurs near the sub-solar point where the solar wind ram pressure is highest (component reconnection). One of the primary goals of this project is to determine if these two reconnection paradigms can be reconciled in the context of the concept of null-null separator reconnection. The other major goal of this project is to determine what role Hall electric fields play in three-dimensional magnetic reconnection at the dayside magnetopause.
To answer these questions, global magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations will be used in conjunction with ground-based observational data from the Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN) in situ measurements from Hydra instrument on the POLAR spacecraft. A database of ionospheric convection data and Polar magnetopause separatrix crossings, under various IMF conditions will be prepared and will then be compared with a set of corresponding MHD simulation runs. In addition to these data/model comparisons, a new three-dimensional, resistive, Hall MHD code will be developed by extending a currently existing two-dimensional code. This new code will be used to study the effects of Hall electric fields on three-dimensional stagnation point flows near thin current sheets.
