Solar Wind Turbulence Studies using MMS Fast Plasma Investigation Data
Abstract
Studies of solar wind turbulence traditionally employ high-resolution magnetic field data, but high-resolution measurements of ion and electron moments have been possible only recently. We report the first turbulence studies of ion and electron velocity moments accumulated in pristine solar wind by the Fast Particle Investigation instrument onboard the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) Mission. Use of these data is made possible by a novel implementation of a frequency domain Hampel filter, described herein. After presenting procedures for processing of the data, we discuss statistical properties of solar wind turbulence extending into the kinetic range. Magnetic field fluctuations dominate electron and ion velocity fluctuation spectra throughout the energy-containing and inertial ranges. However, a multi-spacecraft analysis indicates that at scales shorter than the ion-inertial length, electron velocity fluctuations become larger than ion velocity and magnetic field fluctuations. The kurtosis of ion velocity peaks around few ion-inertial lengths and returns to near gaussian value at sub-ion scales.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1807.06140,
title = {Solar Wind Turbulence Studies using MMS Fast Plasma Investigation Data},
author = {Riddhi Bandyopadhyay and A. Chasapis and R. Chhiber and T. N. Parashar and B. A. Maruca and W. H. Matthaeus and S. J. Schwartz and S. Eriksson and O. LeContel and H. Breuillard and J. L. Burch and T. E. Moore and C. J. Pollock and B. L. Giles and W. R. Paterson and J. Dorelli and D. J. Gershman and R. B. Torbert and C. T. Russell and R. J. Strangeway},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1807.06140},
year = {2018}
}
Comments
Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Supplement