Two- and three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations of a recent encounter
of the Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission (MMS) with an electron diffusion
region at the magnetopause are presented. While the two-dimensional simulation
is laminar, turbulence develops at both the x-line and along the magnetic
separatrices in the three-dimensional simulation. The turbulence is strong
enough to make the magnetic field around the reconnection island chaotic and
produces both anomalous resistivity and anomalous viscosity. Each contribute
significantly to breaking the frozen-in condition in the electron diffusion
region. A surprise is that the crescent-shaped features in velocity space seen
both in MMS observations and in two-dimensional simulations survive, even in
the turbulent environment of the three-dimensional system. This suggests that
MMS's measurements of crescent distributions do not exclude the possibility
that turbulence plays an important role in magnetopause reconnection.Comment: Revised version accepted by GR
