Plasma and wave characteristics during dayside reconnection: Summary and outlook

Magnetic reconnection is a fundamental process in plasma physics, with applications including planetary magnetospheres, solar corona, laboratory plasmas and astrophysics. In 2015 NASA launched the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission to study the process of magnetic reconnection down to the electron scale. One area where MMS has observed many reconnection events is at the Earth's dayside magnetopause. This includes observations of both the electron and ion diffusion regions of reconnection (EDR and IDR, respectively), and the reconnection exhausts. One aspect of reconnection under active investigation is the role of plasma waves in mediating the process. In this "scene-setting" talk, we present a review of the different wave modes that have been observed in association with magnetic reconnection at the dayside magnetopause. These include whistler-mode waves, lower and upper hybrid waves, Bernstein waves, current corrugation waves, and intense parallel electric field oscillations associated with cold plasma mixing. We discuss the location of these waves with respect to the diffusion region and set the stage for further discussion on the role these waves may play in the magnetic reconnection process overall.