Electron Surfing Acceleration at Rippled Reconnection Fronts

Abstract

Abstract The reconnection front (RF), one of the most efficient accelerators of particles in the terrestrial magnetosphere, is a sharp plasma boundary resulting from transient magnetic reconnection. It has been both theoretically predicted and observationally confirmed that electron-scale substructures can develop at the RFs. How such electron-scale structures modulate the electron energization and transport has not been fully explored. Based on high-resolution data from MMS spacecraft and particle tracing simulations, we investigate and compare the electron acceleration across two typical RFs with or without rippled electron-scale structures. Both observations and simulations reveal that high-energy electron flux behind the RF increases more dramatically if the electrons encounter a rippled RF surface, as compared to a smooth RF surface. The main acceleration mechanism is electron surfing acceleration, in which electrons are trapped by the ripples, due to the large local magnetic field gradient, and therefore undergo surfing motion along the motional electric field.