Authors: Gregory Szypko (Rice University), Stephen Bradshaw (Rice University), Grant Gorman (Sandia National Laboratories)

Interchange Reconnection (IR) is a magnetic reconnection scenario occurring at the boundary between open- and closed-field regions of the solar atmosphere, where magnetic connectivity is “interchanged” between the two. IR has been suggested as a mechanism for forming magnetic switchbacks in the solar wind and as a contributor to the high variability of the slow solar wind. To better understand the remote-sensing and in-situ signatures of IR, we focus on the multi-species dynamics near the reconnection site. We begin by performing numerical experiments of interchange reconnection scenarios using a 2.5D resistive MHD model in our code SPRUCE. Then, using tracer particles embedded in these simulations as probes, we perform multi-species non-LTE calculations to predict the local behavior of the individual electron and ion populations. This generates simulated time series of electron and ion temperatures and densities within individual parcels of plasma in and around the IR region. We discuss the implications of these results for both in-situ measurements of solar wind plasma and for synthesizing remote-sensing observations of spectral emission. Ultimately, this approach will help us understand the degree to which IR contributes to coronal energization and solar wind formation by improving our analyses of extreme ultraviolet and in-situ solar wind observations.