Multi-scale magnetic field intermittence in the plasma sheet
Z. Vörös, W. Baumjohann, R. Nakamura, A. Runov, T. L. Zhang, M. Volwerk, H. U. Eichelberger, A. Balogh, T. S. Horbury, K.-H. Glaßmeier, B. Klecker, H. Rème
Abstract
This paper demonstrates that intermittent magnetic field fluctuations in the plasma sheet exhibit transitory, localized, and multi-scale features. We propose a multifractal based algorithm, which quantifies intermittence on the basis of the statistical distribution of the 'strength of burstiness', estimated within a sliding window. Interesting multi-scale phenomena observed by the Cluster spacecraft include large scale motion of the current sheet and bursty bulk flow associated turbulence, interpreted as a cross-scale coupling (CSC) process.