GEM: Occurrence and Properties of Magnetic Reconnection in Magnetosheath Current Sheets

磁重联是一种通用的等离子体过程，它将存储的磁能转化为粒子能量。近地空间提供了一个天然的实验室，这个过程可以在现场进行研究。这个项目建立在最近发现的地球磁鞘中的非湍流和湍流重新连接的基础上。将对磁鞘中星系团和Themis航天器的数据进行全面调查，以确定关于磁鞘重联的观测事实。这些结果将被用来解决关于重联的起始、结构、加热和能量以及湍流流片中的微尺度重联的基本问题。该项目包括培训一名本科生和一名研究生，还计划开展其他教育和公共宣传活动。包含所有磁鞘重联事件的数据库将公之于众，并将对关于重联和一般大电流片的广泛其他研究项目有用。

Magnetic reconnection is a universal plasma process that converts stored magnetic energy into particle energies. The near-Earth space provides a natural laboratory this process can be studied in-situ. This project builds on recent discoveries of reconnection in the Earth's magnetosheath of both non-turbulent and turbulent reconnection. A comprehensive survey of data from the Cluster and Themis spacecraft in the magnetosheath will be carried out to establish the observational facts about magnetosheath reconnection. These results will be used to address fundamental questions regarding onset, structure, heating and energization in reconnection as well as micro-scale reconnection in turbulent current sheets. The project involves training of one undergraduate and one graduate student and other educational and public outreach activities are planned as well. The database containing all the magnetosheath reconnection events will be made publicly available and will be useful for a broad range of other research projects on reconnection and on large current sheets in general.