In an effort to better understand reconnection and diffusion events in the magnetosphere I have been conducting a hand survey of electric field data from the POLAR spacecraft using the Plasma Wave Instrument (PWI). My methodology involved looking at data from the Electric Field Instrument (EFI) and spacecraft potential which indicates the plasma density to determine ideal times to look for electric field spikes associated with magnetic reconnection sites. The PWI takes low frequency scans lasting 2.56 second every 27 or so seconds, I compared the timing of the scans to the EFI and plasma density data to determine which scans are good candidates for finding spikes consistent with Mozer’s findings near reconnection sites. The following two images show EFI and plasma density for May 11, 1997 from 00:50 to 01:21.

During that time I found three large amplitude, extremely rapid, predominately perpendicular electric field structures in the PWI data.

These three scans are emblematic of the type of spikes we are looking for, and they correlate fairly well with changes in the plasma density. At this time only a small hand survey has been done on the PWI data to look for these spikes, our future plans are to do a systematic study of the entire dataset to gain a better understanding of how, when and where these events occur.