Observations of Plasma Waves in the Colliding Jet Region of a 3D Magnetic Flux Rope Flanked by Two Active Reconnection X Lines at the Subsolar Magnetopause

Marit Oieroset, University of California, Berkeley, Space Sciences Laboratory, Berkeley, United States, David J Sundkvist, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, United States, Christopher Carew Chaston, University of California Berkeley, Space Sciences Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, United States, Tai Phan, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, United States, Forrest Mozer, University of California, Berkeley, Space Sciences Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, United States, James P McFadden, Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, United States, Vassilis Angelopoulos, University of California Los Angeles, Department of Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences, Los Angeles, United States, Laila Andersson, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, United States and Jonathan P Eastwood, Imperial College London, Physics, London, United Kingdom
Abstract:
We have performed a detailed analysis of plasma and wave observations in a 3D magnetic flux rope encountered by the THEMIS spacecraft at the subsolar magnetopause. The extent of the flux rope was ∼270 ion skin depths in the outflow direction, and it was flanked by two active reconnection X lines producing colliding plasma jets in the flux rope core where ion heating and suprathermal electrons were observed. The colliding jet region was highly dynamic and characterized by the presence of high-frequency waves such as ion acoustic-like waves, electron holes, and whistler mode waves near the flux rope center and low-frequency kinetic Alfvén waves over a larger region. We will discuss possible links between these waves and particle heating.
Back to: Theory and Observation of Magnetic Reconnection in Complex Heliospheric and Magnetospheric Conditions II