资源环境科技发展态势分析平台

A new study of Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission (MMS) measurements in the Earth's magnetotail, presented by Zhong et al. (2020, ) finds that enhanced energetic electrons in a reconnection-generated ion-scale flux rope in the magnetotail are due to the adiabatic processes of betatron and Fermi (curvature drift) acceleration. These mechanisms act, respectively, on the perpendicular and parallel components of the distribution function so that the role of these mechanisms may be distinctly identified. This study presents a useful template for studying in situ electron energization and contributes significantly to the ongoing discussion of the role of mesoscale structure in reconnection-driven particle acceleration throughout the heliosphere.