Electrostatic solitary waves with distinct speeds associated with asymmetric reconnection

Abstract

These ESWs are associated with asymmetric reconnection of the cold dense magnetosheath plasma with the hot tenuous magnetospheric plasma. The distinct time scales are shown to be due to ESWs moving at distinct speeds and having distinct length scales. The length scales are of order 5-50 Debye lengths, and the speeds range from ∼50 km s −1 to ∼1000 km s −1 . The ESWs are observed near the reconnection separatrices. The observation of ESWs with distinct speeds suggests that multiple instabilities are occurring. The implications for reconnection at the magnetopause are discussed.

Cold ion heating at the dayside magnetopause during magnetic reconnection

“…The first encounter (event 1) was previously discussed by ; Graham et al [2015] and Wang et al [2015], and the second encounter (event 2) was previously discussed by Lee et al [2015] and Toledo-Redondo et al [2015]. The first encounter (event 1) was previously discussed by ; Graham et al [2015] and Wang et al [2015], and the second encounter (event 2) was previously discussed by Lee et al [2015] and Toledo-Redondo et al [2015].…”

Electrostatic solitary waves and electrostatic waves at the magnetopause

“…Figure 1b shows E SC−p3 , and E p4−SC time shifted by 0.34 ms so the fields overlap. When multiple ESWs are observed, the resulting power spectrum shows a single dispersion relation for ESWs with comparable speeds, but distinct dispersion relations are observed when the ESWs have distinct speeds [Graham et al, 2015]. The minus sign indicates propagation antiparallel to B.…”

“…In this paper a study of ESWs and field-aligned electrostatic waves, which do not exhibit localized bipolar fields, near the magnetopause is presented using the Cluster spacecraft. Both spacecraft observations and simulations show that ESWs with distinct properties can be observed simultaneously, meaning that particle scattering can occur over a large range of particle energies [Cattell et al, 2002;Goldman et al, 2008;Che et al, 2010;Fujimoto, 2014;Graham et al, 2015].ESWs are frequently observed near Earth's dayside magnetopause. A large range of speeds is observed, suggesting different generation mechanisms.…”

“…The speeds, length scales, field strengths, and potentials are calculated and compared with the local plasma conditions. They have been observed at the magnetopause boundary [Cattell et al, 2002;Matsumoto et al, 2003], associated with asymmetric reconnection [Tang et al, 2013;Graham et al, 2015], near the center of flux ropes [Øieroset et al, 2014], and in the magnetosheath . In contrast, a smaller range of length scales normalized to the Debye length D is found.…”

“…They have been observed at the magnetopause boundary [Cattell et al, 2002;Matsumoto et al, 2003], associated with asymmetric reconnection [Tang et al, 2013;Graham et al, 2015], near the center of flux ropes [Øieroset et al, 2014], and in the magnetosheath . They have been observed at the magnetopause boundary [Cattell et al, 2002;Matsumoto et al, 2003], associated with asymmetric reconnection [Tang et al, 2013;Graham et al, 2015], near the center of flux ropes [Øieroset et al, 2014], and in the magnetosheath .…”