Onset of reconnection in the tail requires the current sheet thickness to be of the order of the ion thermal gyroradius or smaller. However, existing isotropic plasma models cannot explain the formation of such thin sheets at distances where the X-lines are typically observed. Here we reproduce such thin and long sheets in particle-in-cell simulations using a new model of their equilibria with weakly anisotropic ion species assuming quasi-adiabatic ion dynamics, which substantially modifies the current density. It is found that anisotropy/agyrotropy contributions to the force balance in such equilibria are comparable to the pressure gradient in spite of weak ion anisotropy. New equilibria whose current distributions are substantially overstretched compared to the magnetic field lines are found to be stable in spite of the fact that they are substantially longer than isotropic sheets with similar thickness.

Reconnection in the magnetotail occurs along so-called X-lines, where magnetic field lines tear and detach from plasma on microscopic spatial scales (comparable to particle gyroradii). In 2017–2020 the Magnetospheric MultiScale (MMS) mission detected X-lines in the magnetotail enabling their investigation on local scales. However, the global structure and evolution of these X-lines, critical for understanding their formation and total energy conversion mechanisms, remained virtually unknown because of the intrinsically local nature of observations and the extreme sparsity of concurrent data. Here we show that mining a multi-mission archive of space magnetometer data collected over the last 25+ years and then fitting a magnetic field representation modeled using flexible basis-functions, faithfully reconstructs the global pattern of X-lines; 24 of the 26 modeled X-lines match ($B_z=0$ isocontours are within $\sim2$ Earth radii or $R_E$) or nearly match ($B_z=2$ nT isocontours are within $\sim2 R_E$) the locations of the MMS encountered reconnection sites.

Statistical and case studies, as well as data-mining reconstructions suggest that the magnetotail current in the substorm growth phase has a multiscale structure with a thin ion-scale current sheet embedded into a much thicker sheet. This multiscale structure may be critically important for the tail stability and onset conditions for magnetospheric substorms. The observed thin current sheets are found to be too long to be explained by the models with isotropic plasmas. At the same time, plasma observations reveal only weak field-aligned anisotropy of the ion species, whereas the anisotropic electron contribution is insufficient to explain the force balance discrepancy. Here we elaborate a selfconsistent equilibrium theory of multiscale current sheets, which differs from conventional isotropic models by weak ion anisotropy outside the sheet and agyrotropy caused by quasi-adiabatic ion orbits inside the sheet. It is shown that, in spite of weak anisotropy, the current density perturbation may be quite strong and localized on the scale of the figure-of-eight ion orbits. The magnetic field, current and plasma density in the limit of weak field-aligned ion anisotropy and strong current sheet embedding, when the ion scale thin current sheet is nested in a much thicker Harris-like current sheet, are investigated and presented in an analytical form making it possible to describe the multiscale equilibrium in sharply stretched 2-D magnetic field configurations and to use it in kinetic simulations and stability analysis.

Recent advances in reconstructing Earth’s magnetic field and associated currents by utilizing data mining of in situ magnetometer observations in the magnetosphere have proven remarkably accurate at reproducing observed ion diffusion regions. We investigate the effect of placing regions of localized resistivity in global simulations of the magnetosphere at specific locations inspired by the data mining results for the substorm occurring on July 6, 2017. When explicit resistivity is included, the simulation forms an x-line at the same time and location as the MMS observation of an ion diffusion region at 15:35 UT on that day. Without this explicit resistivity, reconnection forms later in the substorm and far too close to Earth ($\gtrsim-15R_E$), a common problem with global simulations of Earth’s magnetosphere. A consequence of reconnection taking place farther down the tail due to localized resistivity is that the reconnection outflows transport magnetic flux Earthward and thus prevent the current sheet from thinning enough for reconnection to take place nearer Earth. As these flows rebound tailward from the inner magnetosphere, they can temporarily and locally (in the dawn-dusk direction) stretch the magnetic field allowing for small scale x-lines to form in the near Earth region. Due to the narrow cross-tail extent of these x-lines ($\lesssim5R_E$) and their short lifespan ($\lesssim5$min), they would be difficult to observe with in situ measurements. Future work will explore time-dependent resistivity using 5 minute cadence data mining reconstructions.