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Magnetic Reconnection in the Solar Wind

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Abstract

It is only within the last 5 years that we have learned how to recognize the unambiguous signature of magnetic reconnection in the solar wind in the form of roughly Alfvénic accelerated plasma flows embedded within bifurcated magnetic field reversal regions (current sheets). This paper provides a brief overview of what has since been learned about reconnection in the solar wind from both single and multi-spacecraft observations of these so-called reconnection exhausts.

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Gosling, J.T. Magnetic Reconnection in the Solar Wind. Space Sci Rev 172, 187–200 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-011-9747-2

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