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 Dr. Julia E. Stawarz will speak on "Exploring the Relationship Between Turbulence and Electron-Only Reconnection with Magnetospheric Multiscale."
The meeting will be via Zoom.

"Exploring the Relationship Between Turbulence and Electron-Only Reconnection with Magnetospheric"
Multiscale

Dr Julia E. Stawarz
Royal Society University Research Fellow
Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College London
April 23, 11:30 AM (EDT)

Earth’s magnetosheath is filled with complex, nonlinear fluctuations known as turbulence that generate a multitude of small-scale current sheets, which can be sites for magnetic reconnection. Recent observations from NASA’s magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission have revealed that a novel form of magnetic reconnection, known as “electron-only” reconnection, in which the reconnection occurs at electron-scale current sheets and ions do not appear to couple to the newly reconnected field lines to form ion jets, can occur within a number of space plasma environments, including Earth’s turbulent magnetosheath, the bow shock transition region, and in association with magnetotail reconnection. In this talk, I will give a brief overview of MMS observations of electron-only reconnection and discuss the relationship between turbulence and reconnection in Earth’s magnetosheath using a detailed survey of 60 intervals of magnetosheath turbulence observed with high-resolution, multi-spacecraft measurements from MMS. Within these intervals individual reconnection events are systematically identified and their properties are examined in the context of the properties of the turbulent fluctuations in order to explore under what conditions electron-only reconnection occurs and how it may impact the nonlinear behaviour of the turbulence.