Ion-beam-driven intense electrostatic solitary waves in reconnection jet

Electrostatic solitary waves (ESWs) have been reported inside reconnection jets, but their source and role remain unclear hitherto. Here we present the first observational evidence of ESWs generation by cold ion beams inside the jet, by using high-cadence measurements from the Magnetospheric Multiscale spacecraft in the Earth's magnetotail. Inside the jet, intense ESWs with amplitude up to 30 mV m(-1) and potential up to similar to 7% of the electron temperature are observed in association with accelerated cold ion beams. Instability analysis shows that the ion beams are unstable, providing free energy for the ESWs. The waves are observed to thermalize the beams, thus providing a new channel for ion heating inside the jet. Our study suggests that electrostatic turbulence can play an important role in the jet dynamics.Peer reviewe

Hybrid-Vlasov modeling of three-dimensional dayside magnetopause reconnection

Dayside magnetic reconnection at the magnetopause, which is a major driver of space weather, is studied for the first time in a three-dimensional (3D) realistic setup using a hybrid-Vlasov kinetic model. A noon-midnight meridional plane simulation is extended in the dawn-dusk direction to cover 7 Earth radii. The southward interplanetary magnetic field causes magnetic reconnection to occur at the subsolar magnetopause. Perturbations arising from kinetic instabilities in the magnetosheath appear to modulate the reconnection. Its characteristics are consistent with multiple, bursty, and patchy magnetopause reconnection. It is shown that the kinetic behavior of the plasma, as simulated by the model, has consequences on the applicability of methods such as the four-field junction to identify and analyze magnetic reconnection in 3D kinetic simulations.Peer reviewe

Ion Acceleration Efficiency at the Earth's Bow Shock : Observations and Simulation Results

Collisionless shocks are some of the most efficient particle accelerators in heliospheric and astrophysical plasmas. Here we study and quantify ion acceleration at Earth's bow shock with observations from NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) satellites and in a global hybrid-Vlasov simulation. From the MMS observations, we find that quasiparallel shocks are more efficient at accelerating ions. There, up to 15% of the available energy goes into accelerating ions above 10 times their initial energy. Above a shock-normal angle of similar to 50 degrees, essentially no energetic ions are observed downstream of the shock. We find that ion acceleration efficiency is significantly lower when the shock has a low Mach number (M ( A ) < 6) while there is little Mach number dependence for higher values. We also find that ion acceleration is lower on the flanks of the bow shock than at the subsolar point regardless of the Mach number. The observations show that a higher connection time of an upstream field line leads to somewhat higher acceleration efficiency. To complement the observations, we perform a global hybrid-Vlasov simulation with realistic solar-wind parameters with the shape and size of the bow shock. We find that the ion acceleration efficiency in the simulation shows good quantitative agreement with the MMS observations. With the combined approach of direct spacecraft observations, we quantify ion acceleration in a wide range of shock angles and Mach numbers.Peer reviewe

Transmission of foreshock waves through Earth’s bow shock

The Earth's magnetosphere and its bow shock, which is formed by the interaction of the supersonic solar wind with the terrestrial magnetic field, constitute a rich natural laboratory enabling in situ investigations of universal plasma processes. Under suitable interplanetary magnetic field conditions, a foreshock with intense wave activity forms upstream of the bow shock. So-called 30 s waves, named after their typical period at Earth, are the dominant wave mode in the foreshock and play an important role in modulating the shape of the shock front and affect particle reflection at the shock. These waves are also observed inside the magnetosphere and down to the Earth's surface, but how they are transmitted through the bow shock remains unknown. By combining state-of-the-art global numerical simulations and spacecraft observations, we demonstrate that the interaction of foreshock waves with the shock generates earthward-propagating, fast-mode waves, which reach the magnetosphere. These findings give crucial insight into the interaction of waves with collisionless shocks in general and their impact on the downstream medium.Peer reviewe

Electron Heating by Debye-Scale Turbulence in Guide-Field Reconnection

We report electrostatic Debye-scale turbulence developing within the diffusion region of asymmetric magnetopause reconnection with amoderate guide field using observations by the Magnetospheric Multiscale mission. We show that Buneman waves and beam modes cause efficient and fast thermalization of the reconnection electron jet by irreversible phase mixing, during which the jet kinetic energy is transferred into thermal energy. Our results show that the reconnection diffusion region in the presence of a moderate guide field is highly turbulent, and that electrostatic turbulence plays an important role in electron heating.Peer reviewe

Sub-grid modeling of pitch-angle diffusion for ion-scale waves in hybrid-Vlasov simulations with Cartesian velocity space

Numerical simulations have grown to play a central role in modern sciences over the years. The ever-improving technology of supercomputers has made large and precise models available. However, this accuracy is often limited by the cost of computational resources. Lowering the simulation's spatial resolution in order to conserve resources can lead to key processes being unresolved. We have shown in a previous study how insufficient spatial resolution of the proton cyclotron instability leads to a misrepresentation of ion dynamics in hybrid-Vlasov simulations. This leads to larger than expected temperature anisotropy and loss-cone shaped velocity distribution functions. In this study, we present a sub-grid numerical model to introduce pitch-angle diffusion in a 3D Cartesian velocity space, at a spatial resolution where the relevant wave-particle interactions were previously not correctly resolved. We show that the method is successfully able to isotropize loss-cone shaped velocity distribution functions, and that this method could be applied to simulations in order to save computational resources and still correctly model wave-particle interactions.Peer reviewe

Free-flight experiments in LISA Pathfinder

The LISA Pathfinder mission will demonstrate the technology of drag-free test masses for use as inertial references in future space-based gravitational wave detectors. To accomplish this, the Pathfinder spacecraft will perform drag-free flight about a test mass while measuring the acceleration of this primary test mass relative to a second reference test mass. Because the reference test mass is contained within the same spacecraft, it is necessary to apply forces on it to maintain its position and attitude relative to the spacecraft. These forces are a potential source of acceleration noise in the LISA Pathfinder system that are not present in the full LISA configuration. While LISA Pathfinder has been designed to meet it's primary mission requirements in the presence of this noise, recent estimates suggest that the on-orbit performance may be limited by this `suspension noise'. The drift-mode or free-flight experiments provide an opportunity to mitigate this noise source and further characterize the underlying disturbances that are of interest to the designers of LISA-like instruments. This article provides a high-level overview of these experiments and the methods under development to analyze the resulting data.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures. Accepted to Journal Of Physics, Conference Series. Presented at 10th International LISA Symposium, May 2014, Gainesville, FL, US

Electron Signatures of Reconnection in a Global eVlasiator Simulation

Geospace plasma simulations have progressed toward more realistic descriptions of the solar wind-magnetosphere interaction from magnetohydrodynamic to hybrid ion-kinetic, such as the state-of-the-art Vlasiator model. Despite computational advances, electron scales have been out of reach in a global setting. eVlasiator, a novel Vlasiator submodule, shows for the first time how electromagnetic fields driven by global hybrid-ion kinetics influence electrons, resulting in kinetic signatures. We analyze simulated electron distributions associated with reconnection sites and compare them with Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) spacecraft observations. Comparison with MMS shows that key electron features, such as reconnection inflows, heated outflows, flat-top distributions, and bidirectional streaming, are in remarkable agreement. Thus, we show that many reconnection-related features can be reproduced despite strongly truncated electron physics and an ion-scale spatial resolution. Ion-scale dynamics and ion-driven magnetic fields are shown to be significantly responsible for the environment that produces electron dynamics observed by spacecraft in near-Earth plasmas.Peer reviewe

In-flight thermal experiments for LISA pathfinder: simulating temperature noise at the inertial sensors

Thermal Diagnostics experiments to be carried out on board LISA Pathfinder (LPF) will yield a detailed characterisation of how temperature fluctuations affect the LTP (LISA Technology Package) instrument performance, a crucial information for future space based gravitational wave detectors as the proposed eLISA. Amongst them, the study of temperature gradient fluctuations around the test masses of the Inertial Sensors will provide as well information regarding the contribution of the Brownian noise, which is expected to limit the LTP sensitivity at frequencies close to 1 mHz during some LTP experiments. In this paper we report on how these kind of Thermal Diagnostics experiments were simulated in the last LPF Simulation Campaign (November, 2013) involving all the LPF Data Analysis team and using an end-to-end simulator of the whole spacecraft. Such simulation campaign was conducted under the framework of the preparation for LPF operations

A strategy to characterize the LISA-Pathfinder cold gas thruster system

The cold gas micro-propulsion system that will be used during the LISA-Pathfinder mission will be one of the most important component used to ensure the "free-fall" of the enclosed test masses. In this paper we present a possible strategy to characterize the effective direction and amplitude gain of each of the 6 thrusters of this system