Is there Evidence For Diamagnetic Drift Suppressing Magnetic Reconnection at the Earth's Magnetopause?

The occurrence of magnetic reconnection is usually of pivotal importance regarding the evolution of magnetized astrophysical systems. Among others, diamagnetic suppression is a mechanism that can prevent reconnection from developing. Over the last decade, many studies have suggested from statistical analysis of spacecraft observations, that diamagnetic suppression is the dominant mechanism controlling whether reconnection occurs or not, in many space plasma environments, from planetary magnetospheres to the solar wind and heliopause.
This study shows that previous interpretations of the data were based on a theoretical prediction that is inconsistent with the original numerical models of diamagnetic suppression, and that the statistical separation between current sheets classified as either reconnecting or not thus cannot be explained by this effect.
This proposition is based on the observation that the magnetic shear and difference in plasma beta across current sheets classified as either reconnecting or not are well separated by theoretical predictions.
This study derives the condition for the diamagnetic suppression of magnetic reconnection in asymmetric current sheets and show that is is entirely determined by the magnetic field amplitude asymmetry and shear angle but not on the plasma $\beta$.
Furthermore, we show that an observational bias leads to a similar statistical separation simply because outflow speeds expected from reconnection strongly depend on both the magnetic shear and plasma $\beta$, and low velocity jets become increasingly hard to observe when they become comparable to the surrounding flow fluctuation level, preventing the conclusion that reconnection is suppressed in those conditions.
We furthermore show that well detected jets are found in conditions where, in contrast, reconnection should be suppressed, and conclude that the role of diamagnetic suppression at the Earth's magnetopause remains unclear.