Electron dynamics in a subproton-gyroscale magnetic hole - INSU - Institut national des sciences de l'Univers Access content directly
Journal Articles Geophysical Research Letters Year : 2016

Electron dynamics in a subproton-gyroscale magnetic hole

Daniel J. Gershman
  • Function : Author
John C. Dorelli
  • Function : Author
Adolfo F. Viñas
  • Function : Author
Levon A. Avanov
  • Function : Author
Ulrik Gliese
  • Function : Author
Alexander C. Barrie
  • Function : Author
Victoria Coffey
  • Function : Author
Michael Chandler
  • Function : Author
Charles Dickson
  • Function : Author
Elizabeth A. Macdonald
  • Function : Author
Chad Salo
  • Function : Author
Matthew Holland
  • Function : Author
Yoshifumi Saito
William R. Paterson
  • Function : Author
Roy Torbert
  • Function : Author
Li-Jen Chen
  • Function : Author
Katherine Goodrich
Christopher T. Russell
  • Function : Author
Robert J. Strangeway
  • Function : Author
Barbara L. Giles
  • Function : Author
Craig J. Pollock
  • Function : Author
Thomas E. Moore
  • Function : Author
James L. Burch
  • Function : Author

Abstract

Magnetic holes are ubiquitous in space plasmas, occurring in the solar wind, downstream of planetary bow shocks, and inside the magnetosphere. Recently, kinetic-scale magnetic holes have been observed near Earth's central plasma sheet. The Fast Plasma Investigation on NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission enables measurement of both ions and electrons with 2 orders of magnitude increased temporal resolution over previous magnetospheric instruments. Here we present data from MMS taken in Earth's nightside plasma sheet and use high-resolution particle and magnetometer data to characterize the structure of a subproton-scale magnetic hole. Electrons with gyroradii above the thermal gyroradius but below the current layer thickness carry a current sufficient to account for a ~10-20% depression in magnetic field magnitude. These observations suggest that the size and magnetic depth of kinetic-scale magnetic holes is strongly dependent on the background plasma conditions.
Fichier principal
Vignette du fichier
Geophysical Research Letters - 2016 - Gershman - Electron dynamics in a subproton%u2010gyroscale magnetic hole.pdf (3.41 Mo) Télécharger le fichier
Origin : Publisher files allowed on an open archive

Dates and versions

insu-03670244 , version 1 (17-05-2022)

Licence

Copyright

Identifiers

Cite

Daniel J. Gershman, John C. Dorelli, Adolfo F. Viñas, Levon A. Avanov, Ulrik Gliese, et al.. Electron dynamics in a subproton-gyroscale magnetic hole. Geophysical Research Letters, 2016, 43, pp.4112-4118. ⟨10.1002/2016GL068545⟩. ⟨insu-03670244⟩
19 View
10 Download

Altmetric

Share

Gmail Facebook X LinkedIn More