Related papers: The dynamics of electron holes in current sheets
The physics of isolated plasma potential structures sustained by a deficit of phase-space density on trapped orbits, commonly known as electron or ion holes, is reviewed. The principles of their equilibria are explained and illustrated, and…
We study the physics of electron acceleration at collisionless shocks that move through a plasma containing large-scale magnetic fluctuations. We numerically integrate the trajectories of a large number of electrons, which are treated as…
Force-free current sheets are local plasma structures with field-aligned electric currents and approximately uniform plasma pressures. Such structures, widely found throughout the heliosphere, are sites for plasma instabilities and magnetic…
Slow solitary positive-potential peaks sustained by trapped electron deficit in a plasma with asymmetric ion velocity distributions are in principle asymmetric, involving a potential change across the hole. It is shown theoretically how to…
Earth's magnetotail, and the plasma sheet embedded in it, is a highly dynamic region that is coupled to both the solar wind and to the inner magnetosphere. As a consequence of this coupling, the plasma sheet undergoes explosive energy…
Hybrid-Vlasov-Maxwell simulations of magnetized plasma turbulence including non-linear electron-inertia effects in a generalized Ohm's law are presented. When fluctuation energy is injected on scales sufficiently close to ion-kinetic…
Many in-situ spacecraft observations have demonstrated that magnetic reconnection in the Earth's magnetotail is largely controlled by the pre-reconnection current sheet configuration. One of the most important thin current sheet…
A 2D particle simulation models the collision of two electron-ion plasma clouds along a quasi-parallel magnetic field. The collision speed is 0.9c and the density ratio 10. A current sheet forms at the front of the dense cloud, in which the…
Current sheets are an essential element of the planetary magnetotails, where strong plasma currents self-consistently support magnetic field gradients. The current sheet configuration is determined by plasma populations that contribute to…
Implosive formation of current sheets is a fundamental plasma process. Previous studies focused on the early time evolution, while here our primary aim is to explore the longer-term evolution, which may be critical for determining the…
Particle dynamics in the electron current layer in collisionless magnetic reconnection is investigated by using a particle-in-cell simulation. Electron motion and velocity distribution functions are studied by tracking self-consistent…
We investigate the acceleration and transport of electrons in the highly fine-structured current sheet that develops during magnetic flux rope (MFR) eruptions. Our work combines ultra-resolved MHD simulations of MFR eruption, with…
We analyse the kinematic properties of a plasma electron hole: a non-linear self-sustained localized positive electric potential perturbation, trapping electrons, that behaves as a coherent entity. When a hole accelerates or grows in depth,…
Relativistic current sheets have been proposed as the sites of dissipation in pulsar winds, jets in active galaxies and other Poynting-flux dominated flows. It is shown that the steady versions of these structures differ from their…
Reconnection physics at micro-scales is investigated in an electron magnetohydrodynamics frame. A new process of collapse of the neutral current sheet is demonstrated by means of analytical and numerical solutions. It shows how at scales…
We present results of 2D3V particle-in-cell simulations of non-relativistic plasma collisions with absent or parallel large-scale magnetic field for parameters applicable to the conditions at young supernova remnants. We study the collision…
The discovery of long-lived electrostatic coherent structures with large-amplitude electric fields ($1 \leq E \leq 500 $ mV/m) by the Van Allen Probes has revealed alternative routes through which planetary radiation belts' acceleration can…
The plasmoid instability in evolving current sheets has been widely studied due to its effects on the disruption of current sheets, the formation of plasmoids, and the resultant fast magnetic reconnection. In this Letter, we study the role…
We have developed new methods to calculate dispersion curves (analytically in the simpler cases) from which we are able to derive the spatial distribution of electron and current densities. We investigate the case where the magnetic field…
Spacecraft data reveals a nonuniform ambipolar electric field transverse to the magnetic field in a thin magnetotail current sheet that leads to intense ExB velocity shear and non-gyrotropic particle distributions. The ExB drift far exceeds…