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MMS observations of electron scale magnetic cavity embedded in proton scale magnetic cavity

Magnetic cavities (sometimes referred to as magnetic holes) at electron kinetic scale are thought to be one of the extremely small intermittent structures formed in magnetized turbulent plasmas, where the turbulence energy cascaded down to electron scale may finally be dissipated and consequently en...

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Autores principales: Liu, H., Zong, Q.-G., Zhang, H., Xiao, C. J., Shi, Q. Q., Yao, S. T., He, J. S., Zhou, X.-Z., Pollock, C., Sun, W. J., Le, G., Burch, J. L., Rankin, R.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6399300/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30833556
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-08971-y
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author Liu, H.
Zong, Q.-G.
Zhang, H.
Xiao, C. J.
Shi, Q. Q.
Yao, S. T.
He, J. S.
Zhou, X.-Z.
Pollock, C.
Sun, W. J.
Le, G.
Burch, J. L.
Rankin, R.
author_facet Liu, H.
Zong, Q.-G.
Zhang, H.
Xiao, C. J.
Shi, Q. Q.
Yao, S. T.
He, J. S.
Zhou, X.-Z.
Pollock, C.
Sun, W. J.
Le, G.
Burch, J. L.
Rankin, R.
author_sort Liu, H.
collection PubMed
description Magnetic cavities (sometimes referred to as magnetic holes) at electron kinetic scale are thought to be one of the extremely small intermittent structures formed in magnetized turbulent plasmas, where the turbulence energy cascaded down to electron scale may finally be dissipated and consequently energize the electrons. However, the geometry and formation of these structures remain not definitively resolved. Here we discuss an electron scale magnetic cavity embedded in a proton scale magnetic cavity observed by the MMS spacecraft in the magnetosheath. By applying an innovative particle sounding technique, we directly depict the boundary of the electron scale magnetic cavity and uncover the geometry. We find that this structure is nearly circular with a radius of 10.0 km and its formation is due to the diamagnetic current. Investigation of the electron scale structure is only recently made possible by the high spatial and temporal resolution provided by MMS observations.
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spelling pubmed-63993002019-03-06 MMS observations of electron scale magnetic cavity embedded in proton scale magnetic cavity Liu, H. Zong, Q.-G. Zhang, H. Xiao, C. J. Shi, Q. Q. Yao, S. T. He, J. S. Zhou, X.-Z. Pollock, C. Sun, W. J. Le, G. Burch, J. L. Rankin, R. Nat Commun Article Magnetic cavities (sometimes referred to as magnetic holes) at electron kinetic scale are thought to be one of the extremely small intermittent structures formed in magnetized turbulent plasmas, where the turbulence energy cascaded down to electron scale may finally be dissipated and consequently energize the electrons. However, the geometry and formation of these structures remain not definitively resolved. Here we discuss an electron scale magnetic cavity embedded in a proton scale magnetic cavity observed by the MMS spacecraft in the magnetosheath. By applying an innovative particle sounding technique, we directly depict the boundary of the electron scale magnetic cavity and uncover the geometry. We find that this structure is nearly circular with a radius of 10.0 km and its formation is due to the diamagnetic current. Investigation of the electron scale structure is only recently made possible by the high spatial and temporal resolution provided by MMS observations. Nature Publishing Group UK 2019-03-04 /pmc/articles/PMC6399300/ /pubmed/30833556 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-08971-y Text en © The Author(s) 2019 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Liu, H.
Zong, Q.-G.
Zhang, H.
Xiao, C. J.
Shi, Q. Q.
Yao, S. T.
He, J. S.
Zhou, X.-Z.
Pollock, C.
Sun, W. J.
Le, G.
Burch, J. L.
Rankin, R.
MMS observations of electron scale magnetic cavity embedded in proton scale magnetic cavity
title MMS observations of electron scale magnetic cavity embedded in proton scale magnetic cavity
title_full MMS observations of electron scale magnetic cavity embedded in proton scale magnetic cavity
title_fullStr MMS observations of electron scale magnetic cavity embedded in proton scale magnetic cavity
title_full_unstemmed MMS observations of electron scale magnetic cavity embedded in proton scale magnetic cavity
title_short MMS observations of electron scale magnetic cavity embedded in proton scale magnetic cavity
title_sort mms observations of electron scale magnetic cavity embedded in proton scale magnetic cavity
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6399300/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30833556
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-08971-y
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