Plasma wave signatures in the magnetotail reconnection region: MHD simulation and ray tracing

The authors present results of MHD simulations of the magnetic reconnection near the X point in the magnetotail. In particular they study the characteristics of waves generated in this region, which can provide a signature of the event when monitored further out in the magnetotail. At present magnetic reconnection is inferred from ISEE 3 measurements in the deep tail, but only through a difficult analysis proceedure. The Geotail satellite is configured to look for such signatures in the even deeper magnetotail, and to aid in the interpretation of such data, these calculations generate an array of plasma wave phenomena and frequencies, and then the authors use ray tracing techniques to propagate them into the deep magnetotail. Simulations of the signals seen by Geotail can then be made, and one can model better the actual reconnection events