Scale‐Dependent Kurtosis of Magnetic Field Fluctuations in the Solar Wind: A Multi‐Scale Study With Cluster 2003–2015

Roberts, Owen; Alexandrova, Olga; Sorriso‐Valvo, L.; Vörös, Z.; Nakamura, R.; Fischer, D.; Varsani, A.; Escoubet, Philippe; Volwerk, M.; Canu, P.; Lion, Sonny; Yearby, K. H.

doi:10.1029/2021ja029483

Cited by 13 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 168 publications

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“…Similar work was done in Roberts et al. (2022) where it is also discussed why the definition of a mean magnetic field is a sensitive issue (Oughton & Matthaeus, 2020).…”

Section: Validation Of the Electron Density Data And Application To T...mentioning

confidence: 53%

“…The parallel magnetic field component represents the compressive component and can qualitatively be compared to the density fluctuations. Similar work was done in Roberts et al (2022) where it is also discussed why the definition of a mean magnetic field is a sensitive issue (Oughton & Matthaeus, 2020).…”

Section: Validation Of the Electron Density Data And Application To T...mentioning

confidence: 78%

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Density Derivation Using Controlled Spacecraft Potential in Earth's Magnetosheath and Multi‐Scale Fluctuation Analysis

et al. 2023

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“…Similar work was done in Roberts et al. (2022) where it is also discussed why the definition of a mean magnetic field is a sensitive issue (Oughton & Matthaeus, 2020).…”

Section: Validation Of the Electron Density Data And Application To T...mentioning

confidence: 53%

Section: Validation Of the Electron Density Data And Application To T...mentioning

confidence: 78%

Density Derivation Using Controlled Spacecraft Potential in Earth's Magnetosheath and Multi‐Scale Fluctuation Analysis

et al. 2023

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“…The Taylor hypothesis relates to the well-studied "sweeping" hypothesis, whereby large-scale fluctuations sweep (i.e., advect) smallerscale fluctuations (Kraichnan 1965;Tennekes 1975;Zhou 2021). Although invoking Taylor's hypothesis at kinetic scales might introduce substantial inaccuracies, it has nonetheless been shown, numerically and from observations, to be a reasonably good approximation up to second-order statistics (Perri et al 2017;Chhiber et al 2018;Roberts et al 2022). This is also true under a model that incorporates sweeping phenomenology (Bourouaine & Perez 2019;Perez et al 2021).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

What is the Reynolds Number of the Solar Wind?

Wrench,

Parashar,

Oughton

et al. 2024

ApJ

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The Reynolds number, Re, is an important quantity for describing a turbulent flow. It tells us about the bandwidth over which energy can cascade from large scales to smaller ones, prior to the onset of dissipation. However, calculating it for nearly collisionless plasmas like the solar wind is challenging. Previous studies have used formulations of an “effective” Reynolds number, expressing Re as a function of the correlation scale and either the Taylor scale or a proxy for the dissipation scale. We find that the Taylor scale definition of the Reynolds number has a sizable prefactor of approximately 27, which has not been employed in previous works. Drawing from 18 years of data from the Wind spacecraft at 1 au, we calculate the magnetic Taylor scale directly and use both the ion inertial length and the magnetic spectrum break scale as approximations for the dissipation scale, yielding three distinct Re estimates for each 12 hr interval. Average values of Re range between 116,000 and 3,406,000 within the general distribution of past work. We also find considerable disagreement between the methods, with linear associations of between 0.38 and 0.72. Although the Taylor scale method is arguably more physically motivated, due to its dependence on the energy cascade rate, more theoretical work is needed in order to identify the most appropriate way of calculating effective Reynolds numbers for kinetic plasmas. As a summary of our observational analysis, we make available a data product of 28 years of 1 au solar wind and magnetospheric plasma measurements from Wind.

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“…Along with the missions, several multi‐point methods were developed (M. Dunlop et al., 1988; Paschmann, 1998; Paschmann & Daly, 2008). These include multi‐spacecraft wave analysis methods (Constantinescu, 2007; Dudok de Wit et al., 1995; Glassmeier et al., 2001; Motschmann et al., 1996; Narita et al., 2010, 2011, 2021; Pincon & Lefeuvre, 1991; Roberts et al., 2014, 2017; Vogt, Narita, & Constantinescu, 2008), multi‐point structure functions (Chen et al., 2010; Pecora et al., 2023; Roberts et al., 2022), multi‐point correlation functions (Bandyopadhyay, Matthaeus, Chasapis, et al., 2020; Horbury, 2000; Matthaeus et al., 2005; K. T. Osman & Horbury, 2007; K. Osman & Horbury, 2009), and magnetic field reconstruction (Broeren et al., 2021; Denton et al., 2020, 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimation of the Error in the Calculation of the Pressure‐Strain Term: Application in the Terrestrial Magnetosphere

et al. 2023

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Calculating the pressure‐strain terms has recently been performed to quantify energy conversion between the bulk flow energy and the internal energy of plasmas. It has been applied to numerical simulations and satellite data from the Magnetospheric MultiScale Mission. The method requires spatial gradients of the velocity and the use of the full pressure tensor. Here we present a derivation of the errors associated with calculating the pressure‐strain terms from multi‐spacecraft measurements and apply it to previously studied examples of magnetic reconnection at the magnetopause and the magnetotail. The errors are small in a dense magnetosheath event but much larger in the more tenuous magnetotail. This is likely due to larger counting statistics in the dense plasma at the magnetopause than in the magnetotail. The propagated errors analyzed in this work are important to understand uncertainties of energy conversion measurements in space plasmas and have applications to current and future multi‐spacecraft missions.This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

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Scale‐Dependent Kurtosis of Magnetic Field Fluctuations in the Solar Wind: A Multi‐Scale Study With Cluster 2003–2015

Cited by 13 publications

References 168 publications

Density Derivation Using Controlled Spacecraft Potential in Earth's Magnetosheath and Multi‐Scale Fluctuation Analysis

Density Derivation Using Controlled Spacecraft Potential in Earth's Magnetosheath and Multi‐Scale Fluctuation Analysis

What is the Reynolds Number of the Solar Wind?

Estimation of the Error in the Calculation of the Pressure‐Strain Term: Application in the Terrestrial Magnetosphere

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