Characteristics of Reflected Ion Beam in Young HFAs

Abstract:

We analyze reflected ion beams in the vicinity and within young Hot Flow Anomalies at the bow shock observed onboard the CLUSTER spacecraft. Four HFAs were selected based on the criterion that all four spacecraft observed them at the early stage when the current sheet is easily identified. Ion data were available from two spacecraft: C1 and C3. In order to calculate number densities and velocities of the solar wind beam and of the reflected beam we divided in two parts the velocity space in which measurements of the ion flux were performed: one velocity space domain in which only the solar wind beam was observed, the other velocity space domain corresponding to the remaining velocity space in which reflected beam(s) were detected. Ion parameters were calculated as moments of the ion distributions in which phase space density was assigned to respective CLUSTER (θ,φ,V) grid blocks.

One of interesting features present in observed crossings of HFAs is that reflected ions tend to be observed within long time interval from the side of quasi-parallel shock. The flux of these ions is increasing and their average energy is decreasing towards the HFA itself. These cases correspond to larger ratio of the reflected beam density to the solar wind beam density.

Deceleration of the flow within HFA itself is reversely proportional to the reflected beam density, which corresponds to momentum conservation of the flux within HFA.