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Scaling laws for the energy transfer in space plasma turbulence
Sorriso-Valvo, Luca; Marino, Raffaele
One characteristic trait of space plasmas is the multi-scale dynamics resulting from non-linear transfers and conversions of various forms of energy. Routinely evidenced in a range from the large-scale solar structures down to the characteristic scales of ions and electrons, turbulence is a major cross-scale energy transfer mechanism in space plas…
HelioSwarm: A Multipoint, Multiscale Mission to Characterize Turbulence
Verscharen, Daniel; Retinò, Alessandro; Alexandrova, Olga +47 more
HelioSwarm (HS) is a NASA Medium-Class Explorer mission of the Heliophysics Division designed to explore the dynamic three-dimensional mechanisms controlling the physics of plasma turbulence, a ubiquitous process occurring in the heliosphere and in plasmas throughout the universe. This will be accomplished by making simultaneous measurements at ni…
Particle Acceleration by Magnetic Reconnection in Geospace
Khotyaintsev, Yuri; Drake, James F.; Oka, Mitsuo +7 more
Particles are accelerated to very high, non-thermal energies during explosive energy-release phenomena in space, solar, and astrophysical plasma environments. While it has been established that magnetic reconnection plays an important role in the dynamics of Earth's magnetosphere, it remains unclear how magnetic reconnection can further explain pa…
An Anisotropic Density Turbulence Model from the Sun to 1 au Derived from Radio Observations
Kontar, Eduard P.; Chen, Xingyao; Chrysaphi, Nicolina +5 more
Solar radio bursts are strongly affected by radio-wave scattering on density inhomogeneities, changing their observed time characteristics, sizes, and positions. The same turbulence causes angular broadening and scintillation of galactic and extragalactic compact radio sources observed through the solar atmosphere. Using large-scale simulations of…
Laboratory Study of Collisionless Magnetic Reconnection
Yamada, M.; Burch, J.; Egedal, J. +13 more
A concise review is given on the past two decades' results from laboratory experiments on collisionless magnetic reconnection in direct relation with space measurements, especially by the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission. Highlights include spatial structures of electromagnetic fields in ion and electron diffusion regions as a function of u…
Simultaneous Global Ionospheric Disturbances Associated With Penetration Electric Fields During Intense and Minor Solar and Geomagnetic Disturbances
Nishimura, Yukitoshi; Zhang, Shun-Rong; Vierinen, Juha +8 more
A new observational phenomenon, named Simultaneous Global Ionospheric Density Disturbance (SGD), is identified in GNSS total electron content (TEC) data during periods of three typical geospace disturbances: a Coronal Mass Ejection-driven severe disturbance event, a high-speed stream event, and a minor disturbance day with a maximum Kp of 4. SGDs …
Electron Heating Scales in Collisionless Shocks Measured by MMS
Johlander, Andreas; Khotyaintsev, Yuri V.; Dimmock, Andrew P. +2 more
Electron heating at collisionless shocks in space is a combination of adiabatic heating due to large-scale electric and magnetic fields and non-adiabatic scattering by high-frequency fluctuations. The scales at which heating happens hints to what physical processes are taking place. In this letter, we study electron heating scales with data from t…
The evolving paradigm of the subauroral geospace
Mishin, Evgeny V.
An assessment of the status quo of fast subauroral flows—subauroral ion drifts (SAID) and subauroral polarization streams (SAPS), is presented. For a few decades, their development has been interpreted in terms of the voltage and current magnetospheric generators based largely on the drift motion of test particles. Recent multispacecraft observati…
Global Structure of Magnetotail Reconnection Revealed by Mining Space Magnetometer Data
Sitnov, M. I.; Genestreti, K. J.; Tsyganenko, N. A. +5 more
Reconnection in the magnetotail occurs along so-called X-lines, where magnetic field lines tear and detach from plasma on microscopic spatial scales (comparable to particle gyroradii). In 2017-2020, the Magnetospheric MultiScale (MMS) mission detected X-lines in the magnetotail enabling their investigation on local scales. However, the global stru…
Evidence for lunar tide effects in Earth's plasmasphere
Zong, Qiugang; Guo, Ruilong; Xiao, Chao +18 more
Tides are universal and affect spatially distributed systems, ranging from planetary to galactic scales. In the Earth-Moon system, effects caused by lunar tides were reported in the Earth's crust, oceans, neutral gas-dominated atmosphere (including the ionosphere) and near-ground geomagnetic field. However, whether a lunar tide effect exists in th…