A multi-spacecraft analysis of energy transfer associated with near-Earth magnetic reconnection

We present an analysis of energy transfers in a reconnecting near-Earth plasma, obtained by interpreting MMS data within the framework of multi-fluid plasma theory. In our analysis, energy transfers are calculated and examined locally. This way, correlations between different mechanisms of energy exchange can be retrieved in all spatial and temporal detail provided by the high-frequency, multi-point sampling capacity of the four MMS satellites.
In particular, compressional effects are separated from effective sources in the energy density evolution equations, allowing to distinguish whether some effective energy transfer is occurring locally. A large database of MMS encounters with reconnecting current sheets is exploited in order to assess the statistical validity of all results presented.