Multispacecraft Analysis of Electron Holes

Abstract

Electron holes (EHs) are nonlinear electrostatic structures in plasmas. Most previous in situ studies of EHs have been limited to single- and two-spacecraft methods. We present statistics of EHs observed by Magnetospheric Multiscale on the magnetospheric side of the magnetopause during October 2016 when the spacecraft separation was around 6 km. Each EH is observed by all four spacecraft, allowing EH properties to be determined with unprecedented accuracy. We find that the parallel length scale, l_∥, scales with the Debye length. The EHs can be separated into three groups of speed and potential based on their coupling to ions. We present a method for calculating the perpendicular length scale, l_⊥. The method can be applied to a small subset of the observed EHs for which we find shapes ranging from almost spherical to more oblate. For the remaining EHs we use statistical arguments to find l_⊥/l_∥≈5, implying dominance of oblate EHs.