Magnetosheath Plasma Heating near the Earth's Magnetopause
Abstract
With the help of the four CLUSTER spacecraft we investigate isotropization and heating mechanism of plasma confined inside magnetic holes in the magnetosheath near the magnetopause current sheet. We show that the isotropization can be caused by scattering on plasma waves inside the holes. We also identify a transverse MHD Alfvén wave enveloping the holes. We revealed that the holes were shrinking and expanding with the periodicity of the Alfvén wave. We suggest that the slow shrinking-expansion of the holes together with the continuous fast plasma isotropization inside them resembles a similar mechanism to the collisional heating of confined plasma by oscillating electromagnetic fields.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2008
- Bibcode:
- 2008AGUFMSM51A1627P
- Keywords:
-
- 2724 Magnetopause and boundary layers;
- 2728 Magnetosheath;
- 2752 MHD waves and instabilities (2149;
- 6050;
- 7836);
- 2772 Plasma waves and instabilities (2471);
- 2784 Solar wind/magnetosphere interactions