SH53C-06:
In Situ Observations of Ion Scale Current Sheets and Associated Electron Heating in Turbulent Space Plasmas
Friday, 19 December 2014: 2:55 PM
Alexandros Chasapis1, Alessandro Retino1, Fouad Sahraoui2, Antonella Greco3, Andris Vaivads4, Yuri V Khotyaintsev4, David J Sundkvist5 and Patrick Canu1, (1)Laboratoire de Physique des Plasmas, Palaiseau, France, (2)Laboratoire de Physique des Plasmas, Saint-Maur Des Fossés Cedex, France, (3)Dipartimento di Fisica, Universita della Calabria, Calabria, Italy, (4)IRF Swedish Institute of Space Physics Uppsala, Uppsala, Sweden, (5)UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, United States
Abstract:
We present a statistical study of ion-scale current sheets in turbulent
space plasma. The study was performed using in situ measurements from the
Earth's magnetosheath downstream of the quasi-parallel shock. Intermittent
structures were identified using the Partial Variance of Increments
method. We studied the distribution of the identified structures as a
function of their magnetic shear angle, the PVI index and the electron
heating. The properties of the observed current sheets were different for
high (>3) and low (<3) values of the PVI index. We observed a distinct
population of high PVI (>3) structures that accounted for ~20% of the
total. Those current sheets have high magnetic shear (>90 degrees) and
were observed mostly in close proximity to the bow shock with their
numbers reducing towards the magnetopause. Enhancement of the estimated
electron temperature within these current sheets suggest that they are
important for local electron heating and energy dissipation.
