Identification

Title

MMS observations of the multiscale wave structures and parallel electron heating in the vicinity of the southern exterior cusp

Abstract

Understanding the physical mechanisms responsible for the cross-scale energy transport and plasma heating from solar wind into the Earth's magnetosphere is of fundamental importance for magnetospheric physics and for understanding these processes in other places in the universe with comparable plasma parameter ranges. This paper presents observations from the Magnetosphere Multiscale (MMS) mission at the dawn-side high-latitude dayside boundary layer on February 25, 2016 between 18:55 and 20:05 UT. During this interval, MMS encountered both the inner and outer boundary layers with quasiperiodic low frequency fluctuations in all plasma and field parameters. The frequency analysis and growth rate calculations are consistent with the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability (KHI). The intervals within the low frequency wave structures contained several counter-streaming, low- (0-200 eV) and mid-energy (200 eV-2 keV) electrons in the loss cone and trapped energetic (70-600 keV) electrons in alternate intervals. The counter-streaming electron intervals were associated with large-magnitude field-aligned Poynting fluxes. Burst mode data at the large Alfven velocity gradient revealed a strong correlation between counter streaming electrons, enhanced parallel electron temperatures, strong anti-field aligned wave Poynting fluxes, and wave activity from sub-proton cyclotron frequencies extending to electron cyclotron frequency. Waves were identified as Kinetic Alfven waves but their contribution to parallel electron heating was not sufficient to explain the >100 eV electrons, and rapid nonadiabatic heating of the boundary layer as determined by the characteristic heating frequency, derived here for the first time.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7cj8hwz

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2021-03-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

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Conformity

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name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact