Development of the ambipolar electric field in a compressed current sheet with and without a guide field

Current sheets are important to space and laboratory plasmas, and particularly to the Earth’s magnetotail, where during active periods the solar wind compresses the magnetosphere creating thin current sheets. As a current sheet with a reversed magnetic field configuration is compressed, magnetic reconnection can occur. This process can affect the plasma state of the magnetotail, driving space weather and injecting energetic particles into the radiation belts, which impacts Earth orbiting satellites.