资源环境科技发展态势分析平台

We develop an algorithm that finds a trajectory through simulations of magnetic reconnection along which input Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) spacecraft observations are matched. Using two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations of asymmetric reconnection, the method is applied to a magnetopause electron diffusion region (EDR) encountered by the MMS spacecraft to facilitate interpretation of the event based on fully kinetic models. The recently discovered crescent-shaped electron velocity distributions measured by MMS in the EDR are consistent with simulation distributions at the corresponding time along the computed trajectory.