Replication Data for: The Micro-Macro Coupling of Mass-Loading Symmetric Magnetic Reconnection with Cold Ions

This data set contains 113 data files names fields-*.dat containing binary simulation data, one ReadMe text file and one ReadData python script to read the binary data. The fields-*.dat contains electric and magnetic fields and average particle data in the simulation domain. In the study this data set was created for, we compare two 2.5D Particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations, both corresponding to a symmetric tail reconnection event with no guide field. In one run we only have warm plasma, while in the other we uniformly distribute a cold ion population outside |z|=4.5 ion inertial lengths above and below the current sheet. The files in this data set are from the run including cold ions.
Article abstract: We investigate how magnetic reconnection is influenced by an inflow of a dense cold ion population. We compare two 2.5D Particle-In-Cell simulations, one containing the cold population and one without. We find that the cold population influences the reconnection process on both global and kinetic scales, and that the dominant contribution can be explained through mass-loading. We provide an analysis of how these multi-scale changes are related through kinetic processes in the ion diffusion region, the so called micro-macro coupling of mass-loading. The inertia of the cold ion population is found to be the significant link that connects the changes on different scales. The cold and warm populations exhibit counter streaming behavior when and after the ion diffusion region reorganizes itself in response to the arrival of the cold population. This signature of the cold population should be observable by spacecraft observatories such as MMS.