Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS), a NASA four-spacecraft constellation mission launched on March 12, 2015, will investigate magnetic reconnection in the boundary regions of the Earth’s magnetosphere, ...particularly along its dayside boundary with the solar wind and the neutral sheet in the magnetic tail. The most important goal of MMS is to conduct a definitive experiment to determine what causes magnetic field lines to reconnect in a collisionless plasma. The significance of the MMS results will extend far beyond the Earth’s magnetosphere because reconnection is known to occur in interplanetary space and in the solar corona where it is responsible for solar flares and the disconnection events known as coronal mass ejections. Active research is also being conducted on reconnection in the laboratory and specifically in magnetic-confinement fusion devices in which it is a limiting factor in achieving and maintaining electron temperatures high enough to initiate fusion. Finally, reconnection is proposed as the cause of numerous phenomena throughout the universe such as comet-tail disconnection events, magnetar flares, supernova ejections, and dynamics of neutron-star accretion disks. The MMS mission design is focused on answering specific questions about reconnection at the Earth’s magnetosphere. The prime focus of the mission is on determining the kinetic processes occurring in the electron diffusion region that are responsible for reconnection and that determine how it is initiated; but the mission will also place that physics into the context of the broad spectrum of physical processes associated with reconnection. Connections to other disciplines such as solar physics, astrophysics, and laboratory plasma physics are expected to be made through theory and modeling as informed by the MMS results.
Electrons are accelerated to nonthermal energies at shocks in space and astrophysical environments. While shock drift acceleration (SDA) has been considered a key process of electron acceleration at ...Earth's bow shock, it has also been recognized that SDA needs to be combined with an additional stochastic process to explain the observed power-law energy spectra. Here, we show mildly energetic (∼0.5 keV) electrons are locally scattered (and accelerated while being confined) by magnetosonic-whistler waves within the shock transition layer, especially when the shock angle is large ( ). When measured by the Magnetospheric Multiscale mission at a high cadence, ∼0.5 keV electron flux increased exponentially in the shock transition layer. However, the flux profile was not entirely smooth and the fluctuation showed temporal/spectral association with large-amplitude ( ), low-frequency ( where is the cyclotron frequency), obliquely propagating ( , where is the angle between the wave vector and background magnetic field) whistler waves, indicating that the particles were interacting with the waves. Particle simulations demonstrate that, although linear cyclotron resonances with ∼0.5 keV electrons are unlikely due to the obliquity and low frequencies of the waves, the electrons are still scattered beyond 90° pitch angle by (1) resonant mirroring (transit-time damping), (2) non-resonant mirroring, and (3) subharmonic cyclotron resonances. Such coupled nonlinear scattering processes are likely to provide the stochasticity needed to explain the power-law formation.
Electrons are accelerated to non-thermal energies at shocks in space and astrophysical environments. While different mechanisms of electron acceleration have been proposed, it remains unclear how ...non-thermal electrons are produced out of the thermal plasma pool. Here, we report in situ evidence of pitch-angle scattering of non-thermal electrons by whistler waves at Earth's bow shock. On 2015 November 4, the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission crossed the bow shock with an Alfvén Mach number ∼11 and a shock angle ∼84°. In the ramp and overshoot regions, MMS revealed bursty enhancements of non-thermal (0.5-2 keV) electron flux, correlated with high-frequency (0.2-0.4 , where is the cyclotron frequency) parallel-propagating whistler waves. The electron velocity distribution (measured at 30 ms cadence) showed an enhanced gradient of phase-space density at and around the region where the electron velocity component parallel to the magnetic field matched the resonant energy inferred from the wave frequency range. The flux of 0.5 keV electrons (measured at 1 ms cadence) showed fluctuations with the same frequency. These features indicate that non-thermal electrons were pitch-angle scattered by cyclotron resonance with the high-frequency whistler waves. However, the precise role of the pitch-angle scattering by the higher-frequency whistler waves and possible nonlinear effects in the electron acceleration process remains unclear.
Abstract
The Kelvin‐Helmholtz instability (KHI) at Earth's magnetopause and associated turbulence are suggested to play a role in the transport of mass and momentum from the solar wind into Earth's ...magnetosphere. We investigate electromagnetic turbulence observed in Kelvin‐Helmholtz vortices encountered at the dusk flank magnetopause by the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) spacecraft under northward interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) conditions in order to reveal its generation process, mode properties, and role. A comparison with another MMS event at the dayside magnetopause with reconnection but no KHI signatures under a similar IMF condition indicates that while high‐latitude magnetopause reconnection excites a modest level of turbulence in the dayside low‐latitude boundary layer, the KHI further amplifies the turbulence, leading to magnetic energy spectra with a power law index −5/3 at magnetohydrodynamic scales even in its early nonlinear phase. The mode of the electromagnetic turbulence is analyzed with a single‐spacecraft method based on Ampère's law, developed by Bellan (2016,
https://doi.org/10.1002/2016JA022827
), for estimating wave vectors as a function of spacecraft frame frequency. The results suggest that the turbulence does not consist of propagating normal‐mode waves but is due to interlaced magnetic flux tubes advected by plasma flows in the vortices. The turbulence at sub‐ion scales in the early nonlinear phase of the KHI may not be the cause of the plasma transport across the magnetopause but rather a consequence of three‐dimensional vortex‐induced reconnection, the process that can cause an efficient transport by producing tangled reconnected field lines.
Plain Language Summary
Turbulence is ubiquitous in nature and plays an important role in material mixing and energy transport. Turbulence in space plasmas is characterized by fluctuations of flow velocity and/or electromagnetic fields over a broad frequency range and/or length scales and is believed to be the key to efficient plasma transport and heating. However, its generation mechanism is not fully understood because turbulence in space is often fully developed or already relaxed when observed. By analyzing high‐resolution plasma and electromagnetic field data taken by the Magnetospheric Multiscale spacecraft, we study the generation process of electromagnetic turbulence at the outer boundary of Earth's magnetosphere, called the magnetopause, where either a flow shear‐driven Kelvin‐Helmholtz instability or magnetic reconnection or both could drive turbulence. It is shown that while dayside reconnection generates a modest level of turbulence at the magnetopause near noon, the flow shear instability further amplifies the turbulence at the flank magnetopause. Our analysis also suggests that the turbulence may not be the primary cause of plasma transport from solar wind into the magnetosphere but rather a consequence of the flow shear‐induced reconnection that is likely the primary cause of plasma transport at the dayside flank under northward solar wind magnetic field conditions.
Key Points
The Kelvin‐Helmholtz instability (KHI) amplifies electromagnetic fluctuations in the magnetopause boundary layer
The turbulent fluctuations in the vortices may not be due to propagating waves but to magnetic structures, that is, interlaced flux tubes
The observed turbulent power law spectra at sub‐ion scales are consistent with those in kinetic simulations of KHI‐driven reconnection
Three flux ropes associated with near-Earth magnetotail reconnection are analyzed using Magnetospheric Multiscale observations. The flux ropes are Earthward propagating with sizes from ∼3 to 11 ion ...inertial lengths. Significantly different axial orientations are observed, suggesting spatiotemporal variability in the reconnection and/or flux rope dynamics. An electron-scale vortex, associated with one of the most intense electric fields (E) in the event, is observed within one of the flux ropes. This E is predominantly perpendicular to the magnetic field (B); the electron vortex is frozen-in with E × B drifting electrons carrying perpendicular current and causing a small-scale magnetic enhancement. The vortex is ∼16 electron gyroradii in size perpendicular to B and potentially elongated parallel to B. The need to decouple the frozen-in vortical motion from the surrounding plasma implies a parallel E at the structure's ends. The formation of frozen-in electron vortices within reconnection-generated flux ropes may have implications for particle acceleration.
Energetic electrons have frequently been observed in small‐scale flux ropes. However, whether these energetic electrons were energized directly within the flux rope or not is unknown. In this paper, ...we present concrete evidence provided by the Magnetospheric Multiscale mission that a secondary flux rope provided strong acceleration for electrons expelled by the reconnection X line. We find that the energetic electron fluxes inside the ion‐scale flux rope were larger than those outside the flux rope. Electrons were adiabatically accelerated by betatron and Fermi mechanisms inside the flux rope. The highest energy electrons (>100 keV) were produced by betatron acceleration, whereas Fermi acceleration was unable to accelerate the electrons to high energy probably due to the finite distance of the acceleration region along the field‐aligned direction. These results confirm the essential role of ion‐scale flux ropes in producing energetic electrons.
Key Points
First quantitative evidence for adiabatic electron acceleration within ion‐scale flux rope
The most energetic electrons were produced by betatron acceleration inside the flux rope
The role and properties of lower hybrid waves in the ion diffusion region and magnetospheric inflow region of asymmetric reconnection are investigated using the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) ...mission. Two distinct groups of lower hybrid waves are observed in the ion diffusion region and magnetospheric inflow region, which have distinct properties and propagate in opposite directions along the magnetopause. One group develops near the ion edge in the magnetospheric inflow, where magnetosheath ions enter the magnetosphere through the finite gyroradius effect and are driven by the ion‐ion cross‐field instability due to the interaction between the magnetosheath ions and cold magnetospheric ions. This leads to heating of the cold magnetospheric ions. The second group develops at the sharpest density gradient, where the Hall electric field is observed and is driven by the lower hybrid drift instability. These drift waves produce cross‐field particle diffusion, enabling magnetosheath electrons to enter the magnetospheric inflow region thereby broadening the density gradient in the ion diffusion region.
Key Points
Two groups of lower hybrid waves are observed in the ion diffusion and magnetospheric inflow regions
In the magnetospheric inflow region lower hybrid waves develop when cold magnetospheric ions are present and can heat cold ions
In the diffusion region lower hybrid waves develop at the density gradient and can cause cross‐field particle diffusion
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