Magnetic reconnection is a very important and fundamental plasma process in transferring energy from magnetic field into plasma. Previous theory, numerical simulations and observations mostly concen-trate on 2-dimensional (2D) model; however, magnetic reconnection is a 3-dimensional (3D) nonlinear process in nature. The properties of reconnection in 3D and its associated singular structure have not been resolved completely. Here we investigate the structures and characteristics of null points inside the reconnection diffusion region by introducing the discretized Poincaré index through Gauss integral and using magnetic field data with high resolution from the four satellites of Cluster mission. We esti-mate the velocity and trajectory of null points by calculating its position in different times, and compare and discuss the observations with different reconnection models with null points based on character-istics of electric current around null points.
HU YunHuiDENG XiaoHuaZHOU MengTANG RongXinZHAO HuiFU SongSU ZhiWenWANG JingFangYUAN ZhiGangR. NAKAMURAW. BAUMJOHANNH. REMEC. M. CARR
Magnetic reconnection is a fundamental process in plasma,which is thought to play important roles both in laboratory and natural plasmas through affecting magnetic topology,heating and accelerating particles. During an event on Oct. 1st,2001,the Cluster tetrahedron circled around the magnetic reconnection region several times,and Xiao et al. first identified the null pair and found that the spectrum of the null-point oscillation shows the maximum power near the lower-hybrid frequency. In this paper we report the observation of electromagnetic and electrostatic wave enhancements near lower hybrid frequency associated with the reconnection process near the null pair. The lower hybrid waves(LHWs) with quasi-perpendicular propagation were identified and also confirmed by the power law of the spectrum of electric and magnetic fields.
