Abstract. The Geospace Environmental Modeling (GEM) Reconnection Challengeproject is presented and the important results, which are presented in a series of companion papers, are summarized. Magnetic reconnection is studied in a simple Harris sheet configuration with a specified set of initial conditions, including a finite amplitude, magnetic island perturbation to trigger the dynamics. The evolution of the system is explored with a broad variety of codes, ranging from fully electromagnetic particle in cell (PIC) codes to conventional resistive magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) codes, and the results are compared. The goal is to identify the essential physics which is required to model collisionless magnetic reconnection. All models that include the Hall effect in the generalized Ohm's law produce essentially indistinguishable rates of reconnection, corresponding to nearly Alfv6nic inflow velocities. Thus the rate of reconnection is insensitive to the specific mechanism which breaks the frozen-in condition, whether resistivity, electron inertia, or electron thermal motion. The reconnection rate in the conventional resistive MHD model, in contrast, is dramatically smaller unless a large localized or current dependent resistivity is used. The Hall term brings the dynamics of whistler waves into the system. The quadratic dispersion property of whistlers (higher phase speed at smaller spatial scales) is the key to understanding these results. The implications of these results for trying to model the global dynamics of the magnetosphere are discussed.

A review of present understanding of the dissipation region in magnetic reconnection is presented. The review focuses on results of the thermal inertia-based dissipation mechanism but alternative mechanisms are mentioned as well. For the former process, • combination of analytical theory and numerical modeling is presented. Furthermore, • new relation between the electric field expressions for anti-parallel and guide field reconnection is developed.

A new measure to identify a small-scale dissipation region in collisionless magnetic reconnection is proposed. The energy transfer from the electromagnetic field to plasmas in the electron's rest frame is formulated as a Lorentz-invariant scalar quantity. The measure is tested by two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations in typical configurations: symmetric and asymmetric reconnection, with and without the guide field. The innermost region surrounding the reconnection site is accurately located in all cases. We further discuss implications for nonideal MHD dissipation.

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Abstract. Particle-in-cell simulations are used to investigate collisionless magnetic reconnection in thin current sheets, based on the configuration chosen for the Geospace Environment Modeling (GEM) magnetic reconnection challenge [Birn et al., this issue]. The emphasis is on the overall evolution, as well as details of the particle dynamics in the diffusion region. Here electron distributions show clear signatures of nongyrotropy, whereas ion distributions are simpler in structure. The investigations are extended to current sheets of different widths. Here we derive a scaling law for the evolution dependence on current sheet width. Finally, we perform a detailed comparison between a kinetic and Hall-magnetohydrodynamic model of the same system. The comparison shows that although electric fields appear to be quite similar, details of the evolution appear to be considerably different, indicative of the role of further anisotropies in the ion pressures. IntroductionMagnetic reconnection is arguably the most important plasma transport and energy conversion process in space phys-

A review of present understanding of the dissipation region in magnetic reconnection is presented. The review focuses on results of the thermal inertia-based dissipation mechanism but alternative mechanisms are mentioned as well. For the former process, • combination of analytical theory and numerical modeling is presented. Furthermore, • new relation between the electric field expressions for anti-parallel and guide field reconnection is developed.

[1] The Kelvin-Helmholtz waves have been observed along the Earth's low-latitude magnetopause and have been suggested to play a certain role in the entry of solar wind plasma into Earth's magnetosphere. In situ observations of the KH waves (KHW) and, in particular, a nonlinear stage of the KH instability, i.e., rolled-up KH vortices (KHVs), have been reported to occur preferentially for northward interplanetary magnetic field (IMF). Using Cluster data, we present the first in situ observation of nonlinearly developed KHW during southward IMF. The analysis reveals that there is a mixture of less-developed and more-developed KHW that shows inconsistent variations in scale size and the magnetic perturbations in the context of the expected evolution of KH structures. A coherence analysis implies that the observed KHW under southward IMF appear to be irregular and intermittent. These irregular and turbulent characteristics are more noticeable than previously reported KHW events that have been detected preferentially during northward IMF. This suggests that under southward IMF KHVs become easily irregular and temporally intermittent, which might explain the preferential in situ detection of KHVs when the IMF is northward. MHD simulation of the present event shows that during southward IMF dynamically active subsolar environments can cause KHV that evolve with considerable intermittency. The MHD simulations appear to reproduce well the qualitative features of the Cluster observations.

A review of present understanding of the dissipation region in magnetic reconnection is presented. The review focuses on results of the thermal inertia-based dissipation mechanism but alternative mechanisms are mentioned as well. For the former process, • combination of analytical theory and numerical modeling is presented. Furthermore, • new relation between the electric field expressions for anti-parallel and guide field reconnection is developed.