Magnetosheath Filamentary Structures Formed by Ion Acceleration at the Quasi-Parallel Bow Shock

Results from 2.5-D electromagnetic hybrid simulations show the formation of field-aligned, filamentary plasma structures in the magnetosheath. They begin at the quasi-parallel bow shock and extend far into the magnetosheath. These structures exhibit anticorrelated, spatial oscillations in plasma density and ion temperature. Closer to the bow shock, magnetic field variations associated with density and temperature oscillations may also be present. Magnetosheath filamentary structures (MFS) form primarily in the quasi-parallel sheath; however, they may extend to the quasi-perpendicular magnetosheath. They occur over a wide range of solar wind Alfvnic Mach numbers and interplanetary magnetic field directions. At lower Mach numbers with lower levels of magnetosheath turbulence, MFS remain highly coherent over large distances. At higher Mach numbers, magnetosheath turbulence decreases the level of coherence. Magnetosheath filamentary structures result from localized ion acceleration at the quasi-parallel bow shock and the injection of energetic ions into the magnetosheath. The localized nature of ion acceleration is tied to the generation of fast magnetosonic waves at and upstream of the quasi-parallel shock. The increased pressure in flux tubes containing the shock accelerated ions results in the depletion of the thermal plasma in these flux tubes and the enhancement of density in flux tubes void of energetic ions. This results in the observed anticorrelation between ion temperature and plasma density

CORRELATIONS OF PLASMA DENSITY AND MAGNETIC FIELD STRENGTH IN THE HELIOSHEATH

The crossing of the termination shock (TS) by Voyager 2 in 2007 at 84 AU allows a comparison of fluctuations in different heliosheath regions. The Letter concentrates on MHD waves that exhibit a significant correlation between the magnetic field strength and plasma density. The correlations between both quantities were computed on 2?hr time intervals in the frequency range of 1 × 10[superscript -4] to 4 × 10[superscript -3] Hz. We separate the data into two regions with different magnetic field behavior; the post-TS region with many crossings of the current sheet and the unipolar region where the magnetic field direction remains nearly constant. We find that typical correlation coefficients in these regions are about 0.55-0.65, larger than in Earth's magnetosheath. The largest correlations occur when the spectrum of magnetic field fluctuations is dominated by low frequencies.Grant Agency of the Czech Republic (Contract 205/09/0170)Grant Agency of the Czech Republic (Contract 205/07/0694)Grant Agency of the Czech Republic (Contract 202/08/H057)Czech Republic. Ministry of Education (Research Plan 0021620860)United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Voyager Project)United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Grant NNX08AC04G

Correlation length of magnetosheath fluctuations: Cluster statistics

Magnetosheath parameters are usually described by gasdynamic or magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) models but these models cannot account for one of the most important sources of magnetosheath fluctuations – the foreshock. Earlier statistical processing of a large amount of magnetosheath observations has shown that the magnetosheath magnetic field and plasma flow fluctuations downstream of the quasiparallel shock are much larger than those at the opposite flank. These studies were based on the observations of a single spacecraft and thus they could not provide full information on propagation of the fluctuations through the magnetosheath. We present the results of a statistical survey of the magnetosheath magnetic field fluctuations using two years of Cluster observations. We discuss the dependence of the cross-correlation coefficients between different spacecraft pairs on the orientation of the separation vector with respect to the average magnetic field and plasma flow vectors and other parameters. We have found that the correlation length does not exceed ~1 RE in the analyzed frequency range (0.001–0.125 Hz) and does not depend significantly on the magnetic field or plasma flow direction. A close connection of cross-correlation coefficients computed in the magnetosheath with the cross-correlation coefficients between a solar wind monitor and a magnetosheath spacecraft suggests that solar wind structures persist on the background of magnetosheath fluctuations