Reconstruction of the Electron Diffusion Region With Inertia and Compressibility Effects.

Abstract

A method based on electron magnetohydrodynamics (EMHD) for the reconstruction of steady, two‐dimensional plasma and magnetic field structures from data taken by a single spacecraft, first developed by Sonnerup et al. (2016), https://doi.org/10.1002/2016ja022430, is extended to accommodate inhomogeneity of the electron density and temperature, electron inertia effects, and guide magnetic field in and around the electron diffusion region (EDR), the central part of the magnetic reconnection region. The new method assumes that the electron density and temperature are constant along, but may vary across, the magnetic field lines. We present two models for the reconstruction of electron streamlines, one of which is not constrained by any specific formula for the electron pressure tensor term in the generalized Ohm's law that is responsible for electron unmagnetization in the EDR, and the other is a modification of the original model to include the inertia and compressibility effects. Benchmark tests using data from fully kinetic simulations show that our new method is applicable to both antiparallel and guide‐field (component) reconnection, and the electron velocity field can be better reconstructed by including the inertia effects. The new EMHD reconstruction technique has been applied to an EDR of magnetotail reconnection encountered by the Magnetospheric Multiscale spacecraft on 11 July 2017, reported by Torbert et al. (2018), https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aat2998 and reconstructed with the original inertia‐less version by Hasegawa et al. (2019), https://doi.org/10.1029/2018ja026051, which demonstrates that the new method better performs in recovering the electric field and electron streamlines than the original version.