Multiscale analysis of a current sheet embedded in a fast earthward flow during a substorm event detected by MMS

Olivier Le Contel (1) , Alessandro Retino (1) , Alexandra Alexandrova (1) , Rumi Nakamura (2) , Soboh Alqeeq (1) , Thomas Chust (1) , Laurent Mirioni (1) , Filomena Catapano , Christian Jacquey (3) , Sergio Toledo (4) , Julia Stawarz (5) , Katherine Goodrich (6) , Daniel Gershman (7) , Stephen Fuselier (8) , Joey Mukherjee (8) , Narges Ahmadi (9) , Daniel Graham (10) , Matthew Argall (11) , David Fischer (2) , Shiyong Huang (12)

1 LPP - Laboratoire de Physique des Plasmas
2 IWF - Institut für Weltraumforschung = Space Research institute [Graz]
3 IRAP - Institut de recherche en astrophysique et planétologie
4 Department of Electromagnetism and Electronics [Murcia]
5 Imperial College London
6 SSL - Space Sciences Laboratory [Berkeley]
7 GSFC - NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
8 SwRI - Southwest Research Institute [San Antonio]
9 LASP - Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics [Boulder]
10 IRF - Swedish Institute of Space Physics [Uppsala / Kiruna]
11 UNH - University of New Hampshire
12 Department of Space Physics [Wuhan]

<p>In July 2017, the MMS constellation was evolving in the magnetotail with an apogee of 25 Earth radii and an average inter-satellite distance of 10 km (i.e. at electron scales). On 23 rd of July around 16:19 UT, MMS was located at the edge of the current sheet which was in a quasi-static state. Then, MMS<br>suddenly entered in the central plasma sheet and detected the local onset of a small substorm as indicated by the AE index (~400 nT). Fast earthward plasma flows were measured for about 1 hour starting with a period of quasi-steady flow and followed by a saw-tooth like series of plasma jets (&#8220;bursty bulk flows&#8221;). In the present study, we focus on a short sequence related to an ion scale current sheet crossing embedded in a fast earthward flow. We analyse in detail two other kinetic structures in the vicinity of this current sheet: an ion-scale flux rope and an electron vortex magnetic hole and discuss the Ohm&#8217;s law and conversion energy processes.</p>

Domaines: Planétologie et astrophysique de la terre [astro-ph.EP]

Olivier Le Contel, Alessandro Retino, Alexandra Alexandrova, Rumi Nakamura, Soboh Alqeeq, et al.. Multiscale analysis of a current sheet embedded in a fast earthward flow during a substorm event detected by MMS. Virtual EGU General Assembly 2021, Apr 2021, Vienne, Austria. ⟨10.5194/egusphere-egu21-14350⟩. ⟨hal-03331535⟩