On the Nature, the Scaling and the Anisotropy of Electron Dissipation Range in Solar Wind Turbulence (Invited)

Electron scale solar wind (SW) turbulence has attracted great interest in recent years thanks in particular to the high time resolution of the Cluster wave measurements. Here we survey available burst mode data from Cluster search-coil magnetometer (SCM) (1Hz<fsc<180Hz) from 2001 to 2011 and perform a statistical survey of the magnetic energy spectra in free-streaming SW. We discuss the properties of the turbulence at those scales (e.g., scaling, anisotropy) and compare to recent published work on the subject and to existing theoretical predictions. We furthermore emphasize several instrumental caveats that need to be considered in view of better interpreting the observations. We discuss the implications of the results on the physical mechanisms and the theoretical modeling of energy dissipation in the SW, as well on the preparation of the future space missions.