First Results of Calculation of the Dayside Magnetopause Reconnection Rate with TRACERS
Abstract
Quantifying the rate of reconnection remains a key challenge in the study of geomagnetic storms. In this study, we present the first results from the new Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites (TRACERS) mission to calculate the reconnection rate from dispersed ion populations measured in the cusp, using previously developed methodology. We study ion dispersion events in two storms. During the first storm, which occurred on September 30, 2025, 21 dispersion events were identified in TRACERS 2 ion data as a combined result of geospace dynamics and the spacecraft cusp encounters. Throughout this time when ion dispersion was detected by TRACERS , the reconnection rate is calculated and is shown to track reasonably well with another measure of geomagnetic activity, the Cross Polar Cap Potential (CPCP) as obtained by the Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN). The dispersions are correlated with the smoothed CPCP, and a correlation of r2=0.62 was found using the dispersions from the onset and main phase of the storm. The correlation disappears when including dispersions from the recovery period. The distribution of reconnection rates throughout this storm lies generally between 0.1 - 1.5 mV/m, slightly lower than previous reconnection rates calculated with DMSP, but consistent with in-situ observations made with Polar. In this work, we also apply a previously developed automatic identification algorithm for ion-energy cusp dispersion to TRACERS, with the intent that it may serve as a tool for future statistical analysis as the data volume becomes too large to manually review.
Related
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BibTeX
@misc{silva2026first,
title = {{First Results of Calculation of the Dayside Magnetopause Reconnection Rate with TRACERS}},
author = {D. E. da Silva and L. J. Chen and B. Burkholder and C. J. Martin and B. Michotte de Welle and I. DesJardin and S. A. Fuselier and K. J. Trattner and S. M. Petrinec and G. Cucho-Padin and D. Sur and N. Y. Buzulukova and J. Bonnell and J. S. Halekas and D. Miles and S. Henderson and J. Dorelli},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.30517},
eprint = {2610.30517},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.30517},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - First Results of Calculation of the Dayside Magnetopause Reconnection Rate with TRACERS
AU - D. E. da Silva
AU - L. J. Chen
AU - B. Burkholder
AU - C. J. Martin
AU - B. Michotte de Welle
AU - I. DesJardin
AU - S. A. Fuselier
AU - K. J. Trattner
AU - S. M. Petrinec
AU - G. Cucho-Padin
AU - D. Sur
AU - N. Y. Buzulukova
AU - J. Bonnell
AU - J. S. Halekas
AU - D. Miles
AU - S. Henderson
AU - J. Dorelli
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/21
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.30517
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.30517
AB - Quantifying the rate of reconnection remains a key challenge in the study of geomagnetic storms. In this study, we present the first results from the new Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites (TRACERS) mission to calculate the reconnection rate from dispersed ion populations measured in the cusp, using previously developed methodology. We study ion dispersion events in two storms. During the first storm, which occurred on September 30, 2025, 21 dispersion events were identified in TRACERS 2 ion data as a combined result of geospace dynamics and the spacecraft cusp encounters. Throughout this time when ion dispersion was detected by TRACERS , the reconnection rate is calculated and is shown to track reasonably well with another measure of geomagnetic activity, the Cross Polar Cap Potential (CPCP) as obtained by the Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN). The dispersions are correlated with the smoothed CPCP, and a correlation of r^2=0.62 was found using the dispersions from the onset and main phase of the storm. The correlation disappears when including dispersions from the recovery period. The distribution of reconnection rates throughout this storm lies generally between 0.1 - 1.5 mV/m, slightly lower than previous reconnection rates calculated with DMSP, but consistent with in-situ observations made with Polar. In this work, we also apply a previously developed automatic identification algorithm for ion-energy cusp dispersion to TRACERS, with the intent that it may serve as a tool for future statistical analysis as the data volume becomes too large to manually review.
ER -