Huishan Fu

Dipolarization fronts as a consequence of transient reconnection : In situ evidence

Dipolarization fronts (DFs) are frequently detected in the Earths magnetotail from X-GSM=-30 R-E to X-GSM=-7 R-E. How these DFs are formed is still poorly understood. Three possible mechanisms have been suggested in previous simulations: (1) jet braking, (2) transient reconnection, and (3) spontaneous formation. Among these three mechanisms, the first has been verified by using spacecraft observation, while the second and third have not. In this study, we show Cluster observation of DFs inside reconnection diffusion region. This observation provides in situ evidence of the second mechanism: Transient reconnection can produce DFs. We suggest that the DFs detected in the near-Earth region (X-GSM>-10 R-E) are primarily attributed to jet braking, while the DFs detected in the mid- or far-tail region (X-GSM<-15 R-E) are primarily attributed to transient reconnection or spontaneous formation. In the jet-braking mechanism, the high-speed flow pushes the preexisting plasmas to produce the DF so that there is causality between high-speed flow and DF. In the transient-reconnection mechanism, there is no causality between high-speed flow and DF, because the frozen-in condition is violated.

Chorus intensification in response to interplanetary shock

On 3 September 2009, the Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms (THEMIS) satellites observed a significant intensification of chorus in response to the interplanetary shock in the Earths dayside plasma trough. We analyze the wave-particle interaction and reveal that the chorus intensification can be caused by the gyroresonance between the chorus and the energetic electrons. When the electrons are scattered from resonance points to low-density regions along the diffusion curves, a part of their energy can be lost and then transferred to amplify the chorus. During the compression of the magnetosphere, the temperature anisotropy of electrons is enhanced. This makes the electron diffusion and chorus intensification very effective. The maximum growth rate after the shock is about 50% greater than that before the shock. The lower-energy (15-25 keV) electrons contribute more to the growth of chorus due to the larger density gradient along the diffusion curve. The < 10 keV electrons are almost isotropic, so they contribute little to the amplification of chorus. We investigate the free energy for the chorus intensification and find that it can be generated through the local betatron acceleration and radial diffusion processes. The local betatron acceleration results from the shock-induced compression of the magnetosphere. The linear and nonlinear growth rates are also compared. We find that the linear diffusion process works well for the present case.

Electron loss and acceleration during storm time: The contribution of wave‐particle interaction, radial diffusion, and transport processes

During the period 19-22 November 2007, the near-equatorial satellites THEMIS D (ThD) and E (ThE) traversed the Earths morningside magnetosphere once per day and for nearly 2 h the orbits tracked c ...

Whistler‐mode waves inside flux pileup region: Structured or unstructured?

During reconnection, a flux pileup region (FPR) is formed behind a dipolarization front in an outflow jet. Inside the FPR, the magnetic field magnitude and Bz component increase and the whistler-mode waves are observed frequently. As the FPR convects toward the Earth during substorms, it is obstructed by the dipolar geomagnetic field to form a near-Earth FPR. Unlike the structureless emissions inside the tail FPR, we find that the whistler-mode waves inside the near-Earth FPR can exhibit a discrete structure similar to chorus. Both upper band and lower band chorus are observed, with the upper band having a larger propagation angle (and smaller wave amplitude) than the lower band. Most chorus elements we observed are “rising-tone” type, but some are “falling-tone” type. We notice that the rising-tone chorus can evolve into falling-tone chorus within <3 s. One of the factors that may explain why the waves are unstructured inside the tail FPR but become discrete inside the near-Earth FPR is the spatial inhomogeneity of magnetic field: we find that such inhomogeneity is small inside the near-Earth FPR but large inside the tail FPR.

Intermittent energy dissipation by turbulent reconnection

Magnetic reconnection—the process responsible for many explosive phenomena in both nature and laboratory—is efficient at dissipating magnetic energy into particle energy. To date, exactly how this dissipation happens remains unclear, owing to the scarcity of multipoint measurements of the “diffusion region” at the sub-ion scale. Here we report such a measurement by Cluster—four spacecraft with separation of 1/5 ion scale. We discover numerous current filaments and magnetic nulls inside the diffusion region of magnetic reconnection, with the strongest currents appearing at spiral nulls (O-lines) and the separatrices. Inside each current filament, kinetic-scale turbulence is significantly increased and the energy dissipation, E′ ⋅ j, is 100 times larger than the typical value. At the jet reversal point, where radial nulls (X-lines) are detected, the current, turbulence, and energy dissipations are surprisingly small. All these features clearly demonstrate that energy dissipation in magnetic reconnection occurs at O-lines but not X-lines.

Dipolarization fronts as earthward propagating flux ropes: A three‐dimensional global hybrid simulation

Dipolarization fronts (DFs) as earthward propagating flux ropes (FRs) in the Earths magnetotail are presented and investigated with a three-dimensional (3-D) global hybrid simulation for the first time. In the simulation, several small-scale earthward propagating FRs are found to be formed by multiple X line reconnection in the near tail. During their earthward propagation, the magnetic field Bz of the FRs becomes highly asymmetric due to the imbalance of the reconnection rates between the multiple X lines. At the later stage, when the FRs approach the near-Earth dipole-like region, the antireconnection between the southward/negative Bz of the FRs and the northward geomagnetic field leads to the erosion of the southward magnetic flux of the FRs, which further aggravates the Bz asymmetry. Eventually, the FRs merge into the near-Earth region through the antireconnection. These earthward propagating FRs can fully reproduce the observational features of the DFs, e.g., a sharp enhancement of Bz preceded by a smaller amplitude Bz dip, an earthward flow enhancement, the presence of the electric field components in the normal and dawn-dusk directions, and ion energization. Our results show that the earthward propagating FRs can be used to explain the DFs observed in the magnetotail. The thickness of the DFs is on the order of several ion inertial lengths, and the electric field normal to the front is found to be dominated by the Hall physics. During the earthward propagation from the near-tail to the near-Earth region, the speed of the FR/DFs increases from ~150 km/s to ~1000 km/s. The FR/DFs can be tilted in the GSM (x, y) plane with respect to the y (dawn-dusk) axis and only extend several Earth radii in this direction. Moreover, the structure and evolution of the FRs/DFs are nonuniform in the dawn-dusk direction, which indicates that the DFs are essentially 3-D.

KINETIC TURBULENCE IN THE TERRESTRIAL MAGNETOSHEATH: CLUSTER OBSERVATIONS

We present a first statistical study of subproton- and electron-scale turbulence in the terrestrial magnetosheath using waveform data measured by the Cluster/STAFF search coil magnetometer in the frequency range [1, 180] Hz. It is found that clear spectral breaks exist near the electron scale, which separate two power-law-like frequency bands referred to as the dispersive and the electron dissipation ranges. The frequencies of the breaks fb are shown to be well correlated with the electron gyroscale ρ e rather than with the electron inertial length de . The distribution of the slopes below fb is found to be narrow and peaks near –2.9, while that of the slopes above fb is found to be broader, peaking near –5.2, with values as low as –7.5. This is the first time that such steep power-law spectra are reported in space plasma turbulence. These observations provide new constraints on theoretical modeling of kinetic turbulence and dissipation in collisionless magnetized plasmas.

Observations of discrete magnetosonic waves off the magnetic equator

Fast mode magnetosonic waves are typically confined close to the magnetic equator and exhibit harmonic structures at multiples of the local, equatorial proton cyclotron frequency. We report observations of magnetosonic waves well off the equator at geomagnetic latitudes from −16.5°to −17.9° and L shell ~2.7–4.6. The observed waves exhibit discrete spectral structures with multiple frequency spacings. The predominant frequency spacings are ~6 and 9 Hz, neither of which is equal to the local proton cyclotron frequency. Backward ray tracing simulations show that the feature of multiple frequency spacings is caused by propagation from two spatially narrow equatorial source regions located at L ≈ 4.2 and 3.7. The equatorial proton cyclotron frequencies at those two locations match the two observed frequency spacings. Our analysis provides the first observations of the harmonic nature of magnetosonic waves well away from the equatorial region and suggests that the propagation from multiple equatorial sources contributes to these off-equatorial magnetosonic emissions with varying frequency spacings.

Electric fields associated with dipolarization fronts

Electric fields associated with dipolarization fronts (DFs) have been investigated in the magnetotail plasma sheet using Cluster observations. We have studied each term in the generalized Ohms law using data obtained from the multispacecraft Cluster. Our results show that in the plasma flow frame, electric fields are directed normal to the DF in the magnetic dip region ahead of the DF as well as in the DF layer but in opposite directions. Case and statistical studies show that the Hall electric field is important while the electron pressure gradient term is much smaller. The ions decouple from the magnetic field in the DF layer and dip region (E + Vi×B ≠ 0), whereas electrons remain frozen-in (E + Ve×B=∇pe/nee).

Suprathermal particle energization in dipolarization fronts: Particle-in-cell simulations

Within dipolarization fronts (DFs) in the Earths magnetotail, significant magnetic energy is converted to plasma energy, and a significant portion of the electrons and ions therein are accelerated to suprathermal energies. The mechanism that produces these suprathermal particles while simultaneously reducing magnetic field energy is poorly understood, however. We use two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations to explore this process in conventional flux bundle-type DFs, which are formed by single X-line reconnection and connected to the Earth, and in newly proposed flux rope-type DFs, which are formed and bracketed by two X-lines. In flux bundle-type DFs, electrons are betatron-accelerated near the Bz peak, and ions are energized through reflection at the front. In flux rope-type DFs, most suprathermal electrons and ions are confined to the flux ropes magnetic structure and are accelerated through repeated reflections at the structures two ends.