caa a22 4500 46907714X CHVBK 20180323132938.0 cr unu---uuuuu 170328e19920901xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/BF02507837 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/BF02507837 Zimbardo G. Dipartimento di Fisica, Università della Calabria, 87030, Arcavacata di Rende, Italia aut Chaotic collisionless reconnection in Jupiter's nightside magnetosphere [Elektronische Daten] [G. Zimbardo] Summary: Recently it has been shown that an X-type magnetic neutral line may form in Jupiter's nightside magnetosphere as the result of the current flowing in the plasma disc. Still, a collisionless reconnection mechanism is required to tear up the magnetic field. Recently, Büchner and Zelenyi showed that the chaotization of the electron motion can lead to fast collisionless reconnection in the Earth's magnetotail. In their theory, enhanced pitch angle diffusion is obtained when the curvature parameter κe decreases to κe ≃ 1.6. We apply Büchner and Zelenyi's theory to Jupiter's magnetosphere. The curvature parameter is obtained from the measured plasma parameters and from a self-consistent equilibrium model of the magnetic field, and the results for κe show that the larger the assumed plasma disc, the larger is the range where κe is less than or equal to the stochasticity threshold 1.6. This indicates that chaotic magnetic-field line reconnection may occur in Jupiter's nightside magnetosphere around 60R J from the planet, and is consistent with thein situ magnetic-field observations, that show the signature of magnetic islands and of tearing-mode instability in the relevant region. We speculate that these processes, differently from the Earth's case, occur in a semi-steady way. Società Italiana di Fisica, 1992 Ionospheres nationallicence magnetospheres nationallicence Jupiter nationallicence Magnetic tail nationallicence Il Nuovo Cimento C Kluwer Academic Publishers 15/5(1992-09-01), 645-655 0390-5551 15:5<645 1992 15 11543 https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02507837 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02507837 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 100 1- Zimbardo G. Dipartimento di Fisica, Università della Calabria, 87030, Arcavacata di Rende, Italia aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Il Nuovo Cimento C Kluwer Academic Publishers 15/5(1992-09-01), 645-655 0390-5551 15:5<645 1992 15 11543 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer