Effects of Resistivity on the Reconstructed Plasma Fields Revealed by a Three‐Dimensional Empirical Reconstruction Model

Abstract We extend the previous three‐dimensional (3D) empirical reconstruction (ER) model for a set of ideal magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) constraints into a resistive MHD 3D ER model that includes additional resistive MHD constraints and additional measurements from NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission. The same form of a stochastic optimization algorithm is used as in the previous ideal MHD 3D ER model to directly minimize the loss function that includes a few more highly nonlinear terms characterizing the model‐measurement differences and the model departures from physical constraints. The resistive MHD 3D ER model is applied to three regions of MMS measurements that correspond to direct sampling of an electron diffusion region (EDR), a region adjacent to the EDR, and one far away from the EDR. The reconstructed plasma and electromagnetic fields are of high quality in all three regions as measured by model‐measurement difference indices and physics‐based quality indicators. The reconstructed fields in the EDR provide us with a good view of the spatial configuration of the reconnection site. We specifically examine the effect of resistivity on energy exchange in the vicinity of the EDR. It was discovered that in the EDR, the energy exchange shows an exclusive and systematic one‐channel process between the plasma thermal energy and electromagnetic energy with the conversion rate highly correlated with the strength of the turbulent electromagnetic fields. In the other two regions away from the EDR, the energy exchange between the electromagnetic energy and the plasma thermal and kinetic energies shows rapidly‐varying and random characteristics.