Empirical reconstruction of flux transfer events at the magnetopause

Flux Transfer Events (FTEs) observed at the Earth's magnetopause are generally believed to be products of transient and patchy magnetic reconnection processes, serving as linkage channels between solar wind and Earth's magnetosphere and therefore playing a crucial role in the exchange of mass, momentum, and energy between these two regions. Magnetic field reconstruction techniques are useful for better understanding FTE's formation and evolution and its interaction with surrounding environment. Traditional techniques such as Grad-Shafranov reconstruction and FTE model fitting methods, however, are confined to specific physical conditions. A new multi-point method applicable to two-dimensional FTEs in various physical condition is devised based on plane linear interpolation. The applications to two FTEs observed by THEMIS and Cluster show that the method can quickly and efficiently reconstruct the spatial distribution of the magnetic field structure, and will help to infer the magnetic field line configurations, understand the temporal variation of measured data and analyze the spatial distribution characteristic of plasma parameters relative to the magnetic field.