Local characterization of homogeneous turbulence in a space plasma from simultaneous Measurements of field components at several points in space

Abstract

The best method was sought for defining locally an electrostatic or an electromagnetic turbulence in a space plasma, based on the simultaneous measurement of several wave field components at several points in space. The turbulent field is supposed to be stationary in time and homogeneous in space. An estimate of a local field energy distribution, denoted F(ω,k), which specifies how the field energy observed by a limited number of satellites is distributed with regard to the angular frequency ω and to the wave number k, is derived from a generalization of the Capon [1969] high‐resolution method. The Quality of this estimate is deemed sufficient, as shown by examples of application to synthetic data.

Statistical analysis of ground based magnetic field measurements with the field line resonance detector

“…Pillai (1989) proved the wave telescope to be a generalized minimum variance technique. Pinçon and Lefeuvre (1991) expanded the method to include multidimensional (vectorial) observables and Motschmann et al (1996) further developed it in order to apply it to multipoint satellite measurements (e.g. Glassmeier et al, 2001;Narita et al, 2003;Constantinescu et al, 2007).…”

Magnetic turbulent spectra in the magnetosheath: new insights

“…This, of course, is possible, providing one uses well adapted tools that take full advantage of the 3-D Cluster data. The k-filtering technique, which was introduced in the context of space physics by Pinçon and Lefeuvre (1991), was applied by Sahraoui et al (2003) to study the magnetic fluctuations measured by the Cluster-STAFF experiment. In this first application of the k-filtering technique to STAFF data, they have discussed the new opportunities that it offers to study the space plasma turbulence.…”

Wave properties in the magnetic reconnection diffusion region with high β: Application of the k‐filtering method to Cluster multispacecraft data

“…We use a more robust method, namely, the k-filtering technique, to study the properties of low-frequency waves observed by the Cluster spacecraft and compare them to the results of Chaston et al [2009]. The k-filtering technique is a generalized minimum variance technique introduced into space science by Pinçon and Lefeuvre [1991]. This technique allows one to estimate the magnetic wave field energy distribution P(w, k) in the frequency and wave vector domain from data measured simultaneously at several points in space, under the assumption of (sufficient) stationarity of the time series (more details on this technique are given by Pinçon and Lefeuvre [1991], Pinçon and Motschmann [1998], Sahraoui et al [2003Sahraoui et al [ , 2010 [Balogh et al, 1997], and the Electric Fields and Waves (EFW) instrument provides 25 Hz electric field data [Gustafson et al, 1997].…”

“…The k-filtering technique is a generalized minimum variance technique introduced into space science by Pinçon and Lefeuvre [1991]. This technique allows one to estimate the magnetic wave field energy distribution P(w, k) in the frequency and wave vector domain from data measured simultaneously at several points in space, under the assumption of (sufficient) stationarity of the time series (more details on this technique are given by Pinçon and Lefeuvre [1991], Pinçon and Motschmann [1998], Sahraoui et al [2003Sahraoui et al [ , 2010 [Balogh et al, 1997], and the Electric Fields and Waves (EFW) instrument provides 25 Hz electric field data [Gustafson et al, 1997]. Plasma data on ions and electrons (with 4 s resolution) were obtained from the Cluster Ion Spectrometry (CIS) and plasma electron and current experiment (PEACE) instruments, respectively [Rème et al, 2001;Johnstone et al, 1997].…”