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Energy conversion within current sheets in the Earth's quasi-parallel magnetosheath

Energy conversion within current sheets in the Earth's quasi-parallel magnetosheath
Energy conversion within current sheets in the Earth's quasi-parallel magnetosheath
Shock waves in collisionless plasmas rely on kinetic processes to convert the primary incident bulk flow energy into thermal energy. That conversion is initiated within a thin transition layer but may continue well into the downstream region. At the Earth's bow shock, the region downstream of shock locations where the interplanetary magnetic field is nearly parallel to the shock normal is highly turbulent. We study the distribution of thin current events in this magnetosheath. Quantification of the energy dissipation rate made by the Magnetospheric Multiscale spacecraft shows that these isolated intense currents are distributed uniformly throughout the magnetosheath and convert a significant fraction (5%–11%) of the energy flux incident at the bow shock.
Quasi-parallel shock, current sheets, energy conversion, magnetosheath
0094-8276
Schwartz, Steven J.
6e89ea4b-98a3-4a7d-900e-63dd9a64cd4c
Kucharek, Harald
26be3c68-a369-4653-b8ce-ed464946bc42
Farrugia, Charles J.
d00b3557-32e1-4295-9e34-36bb3f5f3659
Trattner, Karlheinz
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Gingell, Imogen
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Ergun, Robert
a1057c29-5201-4c8e-8b3a-508357121cb6
Strangeway, Robert
c6a60aa6-521b-491b-a2be-c5db80bce9a6
Gershman, Daniel
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Schwartz, Steven J.
6e89ea4b-98a3-4a7d-900e-63dd9a64cd4c
Kucharek, Harald
26be3c68-a369-4653-b8ce-ed464946bc42
Farrugia, Charles J.
d00b3557-32e1-4295-9e34-36bb3f5f3659
Trattner, Karlheinz
93c56ffe-958a-41c3-821d-550a0883e366
Gingell, Imogen
ba7b8113-3833-40d8-a879-aab3f987455d
Ergun, Robert
a1057c29-5201-4c8e-8b3a-508357121cb6
Strangeway, Robert
c6a60aa6-521b-491b-a2be-c5db80bce9a6
Gershman, Daniel
1f5e8f2e-c2e0-4cea-a289-0197d2798a1b

Schwartz, Steven J., Kucharek, Harald, Farrugia, Charles J., Trattner, Karlheinz, Gingell, Imogen, Ergun, Robert, Strangeway, Robert and Gershman, Daniel (2021) Energy conversion within current sheets in the Earth's quasi-parallel magnetosheath. Geophysical Research Letters, 48 (4), [e2020GL091859]. (doi:10.1029/2020GL091859).

Record type: Letter

Abstract

Shock waves in collisionless plasmas rely on kinetic processes to convert the primary incident bulk flow energy into thermal energy. That conversion is initiated within a thin transition layer but may continue well into the downstream region. At the Earth's bow shock, the region downstream of shock locations where the interplanetary magnetic field is nearly parallel to the shock normal is highly turbulent. We study the distribution of thin current events in this magnetosheath. Quantification of the energy dissipation rate made by the Magnetospheric Multiscale spacecraft shows that these isolated intense currents are distributed uniformly throughout the magnetosheath and convert a significant fraction (5%–11%) of the energy flux incident at the bow shock.

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Energy Conversion Within Current Sheets in the Earth's Quasi-Parallel Magnetosheath - Accepted Manuscript
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Accepted/In Press date: 14 January 2021
e-pub ahead of print date: 20 January 2021
Published date: 28 February 2021
Additional Information: Funding Information: This work was supported by NASA Award 80NSSC19K0849 together with NASA MMS contracts to the instrument teams. IG is supported by a Royal Society URF. Publisher Copyright: © 2021. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.
Keywords: Quasi-parallel shock, current sheets, energy conversion, magnetosheath

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 447966
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/447966
ISSN: 0094-8276
PURE UUID: 19416f14-9d9d-4807-a817-7a8c6002263d
ORCID for Imogen Gingell: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-2218-1909

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Date deposited: 29 Mar 2021 16:30
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 06:27

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Contributors

Author: Steven J. Schwartz
Author: Harald Kucharek
Author: Charles J. Farrugia
Author: Karlheinz Trattner
Author: Imogen Gingell ORCID iD
Author: Robert Ergun
Author: Robert Strangeway
Author: Daniel Gershman

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