Statistical Study of Kinetic Scale Wave Properties inside Fluid-Scale Kelvin-Helmholtz Waves
Abstract
Understanding the origins of plasma heating and transport from the turbulent magnetosheath into the magnetotail, and the dawn-dusk asymmetry of cold-component plasma sheet ions is one of the pending problems in space physics. In our recent work we show evidence of a new cross-scale energy transport mechanism explaining how cold flow energy in solar wind is transported into heat energy of ions via macroscopic Kelvin-Helmholtz waves that in their non-linear stage can radiate ion-scale magnetosonic modes with sufficient energy to provide observed level of ion heating. These results might prove to have a far reaching impact on systems where velocity shears exist such as astrophysical and laboratory plasmas. As an extension to these recent results, we explore the properties of kinetic ion-scale waves during hundreds of individual magnetopause crossings from six KHI events and compare with wave properties when KH waves are absent.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2016
- Bibcode:
- 2016AGUFMSH12A..06M
- Keywords:
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- 2159 Plasma waves and turbulence;
- INTERPLANETARY PHYSICSDE: 2723 Magnetic reconnection;
- MAGNETOSPHERIC PHYSICSDE: 7846 Plasma energization;
- SPACE PLASMA PHYSICSDE: 7863 Turbulence;
- SPACE PLASMA PHYSICS