Magnetic reconnection at the magnetopause (MP) energizes ambient plasma via the release of magnetic energy and produces an “open” magnetosphere allowing solar wind particles to directly enter the system. At Saturn, the nature of MP reconnection remains unclear. The current study examines electron bulk heating at MP crossings, in order to probe the relationship between observed and predicted reconnection heating proposed by Phan et al. (2013, https://doi.org/10.1002/grl.50917) under open and closed MP, and how this may pertain to the position of the crossings in the Δβ‐magnetic shear parameter space. The electron heating for 70 MP crossings made by the Cassini spacecraft from April 2005 to July 2007 was found using 1d and 3d moment methods. Minimum variance analysis was used on the magnetic field data to help indicate whether the MP is open or closed. We found better agreement between observed and predicted heating for events suggestive of locally “open” MP. For events suggestive of locally “closed” MP, we observed a cluster of points consistent with no electron heating, but also numerous cases with significant heating. Examining the events in the Δβ‐magnetic shear parameter space, we find 83% of events without evidence of energization were situated in the “reconnection suppressed” regime, whilst between 43% to 68% of events with energization lie in the “reconnection possible” regime depending on the threshold used. The discrepancies could be explained by a combination of spatial and temporal variability which makes it possible to observe heated electrons with different conditions from the putative reconnection site.

中文翻译：

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土星磁层顶的电子散装加热

磁层顶（MP）处的磁重新连接通过释放磁能来激发周围的等离子体，并产生“开放”的磁层，从而使太阳风粒子直接进入系统。在土星，MP重新连接的性质仍不清楚。当前的研究检查了MP交叉处的电子本体加热，以探究Phan等人提出的观察到的和预测的重新连接加热之间的关系。（2013，https://doi.org/10.1002/grl.50917）下打开和关闭MP，以及如何可属于交叉的在Δ的位置β电磁剪切参数空间。使用1d和3d矩方法，发现了2005年4月至2007年7月，卡西尼号航天器对70个MP穿越进行的电子加热。对磁场数据进行了最小方差分析，以帮助指示MP是打开还是关闭。我们发现在观察到的和预测的加热之间，对于暗示局部“开放” MP的事件具有更好的一致性。对于暗示局部“闭合” MP的事件，我们观察到了一系列点，这些点与没有电子加热一致，但在许多情况下也有明显的加热现象。检查在Δ事件β在电磁剪切参数空间中，我们发现83％的无通电事件位于“重新连接抑制”状态，而43％至68％的通电事件位于“可能重新连接”状态，具体取决于使用的阈值。差异可以通过时空变化的组合来解释，这使得可以从假定的重新连接位置观察具有不同条件的加热电子。