Establishing the Context for Reconnection Diffusion Region Encounters and Strategies for the Capture and Transmission of Diffusion Region Burst Data by MMS

Abstract

This paper describes the efforts of our Inter-Disciplinary Scientist (IDS) team to (a) establish the large-scale context for reconnection diffusion region encounters by MMS at the magnetopause and in the magnetotail, including the distinction between X-line and O-line encounters, that would help the identification of diffusion regions in spacecraft data, and (b) devise possible strategies that can be used by MMS to capture and transmit burst data associated with diffusion region candidates. At the magnetopause we suggest the strategy of transmitting burst data from all magnetopause crossings so that no magnetopause reconnection diffusion regions encountered by the spacecraft will be missed. The strategy is made possible by the MMS mass memory and downlink budget. In the magnetotail, it is estimated that MMS will be able to transmit burst data for all diffusion regions, all reconnection jet fronts (a.k.a. dipolarization fronts) and separatrix encounters, but less than 50 % of reconnection exhausts encountered by the spacecraft. We also discuss automated burst trigger schemes that could capture various reconnection-related phenomena. The identification of candidate diffusion region encounters by the burst trigger schemes will be verified and improved by a Scientist-In-The-Loop (SITL). With the knowledge of the properties of the region surrounding the diffusion region and the combination of automated burst triggers and further optimization by the SITL, MMS should be able to capture most diffusion regions it encounters.