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Collisionless plasma systems are often studied using fully kinetic simulations, where protons and electrons are treated as particles. Due to their computational expense, it is necessary to reduce the ion-to-electron mass ratio m_{i}/m_{e} or the ratio between plasma and cyclotron frequencies in simulations of large systems. In this Letter we show that when electron-scale waves are present in larger-scale systems, numerical parameters affect their amplitudes and effects on the larger system. Using lower-hybrid drift waves during magnetic reconnection as an example, we find that the ratio between the wave electric field and the reconnection electric field scales as sqrt[m_{i}/m_{e}], while the phase relationship is also affected. The combination of these effects means that the anomalous drag that contributes to momentum balance in the reconnection region can be underestimated by an order of magnitude. The results are relevant to the coupling of electron-scale waves to ion-scale reconnection regions, and other systems such as collisionless shocks.

Abstract On 24 April 2023, a Coronal Mass Ejection event caused the solar wind to become sub‐Alfvénic, leading to the development of an Alfvén Wing configuration in the Earth's magnetosphere. Alfvén Wings have previously been observed as cavities of low flow around moons in Jupiter's and Saturn's magnetospheres, but the observing spacecraft did not have the ability to directly measure the Alfvén Wings' current structures. Through in situ measurements made by the Magnetospheric Multiscale spacecraft, the 24 April event provides us with the first direct measurements of current structures during an Alfvén Wing configuration. These structures are observed to be significantly more anti‐field‐aligned and electron‐driven than the typical diamagnetic magnetopause current, indicating the disruption caused to the magnetosphere current system by the Alfvén Wing formation. The magnetopause current is then observed to recover more of its typical, perpendicular structure during the magnetosphere's recovery from the Alfvén Wing formation.

Abstract When the solar wind speed falls below the local Alfvén speed, the magnetotail transforms into an Alfvén wing configuration. A Grid Agnostic Magnetohydrodynamics for Extended Research Applications (GAMERA) simulation of Earth's magnetosphere using solar wind parameters from the 24 April 2023 sub‐Alfvénic interval is examined to reveal modifications of Dungey‐type magnetotail reconnection during sustained sub‐Alfvénic solar wind. The simulation shows new magnetospheric flux is generated via reconnection between polar cap field lines from the northern and southern hemisphere, similar to Dungey‐type magnetotail reconnection between lobe field lines mapping to opposite hemispheres. The key feature setting the Alfvén wing reconnection apart from the typical Dungey‐type is that the majority of new magnetospheric flux is added to the polar cap at local times 1–3 (21‐23) in the northern (southern) hemisphere. During most of the sub‐Alfvénic interval, reconnection mapping to midnight in the polar cap generates relatively little new magnetospheric flux.

Abstract Interactions between solar wind ions and neutral hydrogen atoms in Earth's exosphere can lead to the emission of soft X‐rays. Upcoming missions such as SMILE and LEXI aim to use soft X‐ray imaging to study the global structure of the magnetosphere. Although the magnetosheath and dayside magnetopause can often be driven by kinetic physics, it has typically been omitted from fluid simulations used to predict X‐ray emissions. We study the possible results of soft X‐ray imaging using hybrid simulations under quasi‐radial interplanetary magnetic fields, where ion‐ion instabilities drive ultra‐low frequency foreshock waves, leading to turbulence in the magnetosheath, affecting the dynamics of the cusp and magnetopause. We simulate soft X‐ray emission to determine what may be seen by missions such as LEXI, and evaluate the possibility of identifying kinetic structures. While kinetic structures are visible in high‐cadence imaging, current instruments may not have the time resolution to discern kinetic signals.

Numerous structures conducive to magnetic reconnection are frequently observed in the turbulent regions at quasi-parallel shocks. In this work, we use a particle-in-cell simulation to study 3D magnetic reconnection in shock turbulence. We identify and characterize magnetic null points, and focus on reconnection along the separator between them. We identify a reconnection region with strong parallel current, a finite parallel potential, and counterrotating electron flows. Electrons are shown to be accelerated by the parallel electric field before being scattered at the null.

We report new theories and simulations for electron acceleration in magnetic islands generated by magnetic reconnection in the shock turbulence in a quasi-parallel shock, using a 2 and 1/2 dimensional particle-in-cell simulation. When an island is moving, unmagnetized electrons are accelerated by the Hall electric field pointing toward the island center. In a stationary island, some electrons are energized by “island betatron acceleration” due to the induction electric field when the island core magnetic field changes with time. In the simulation, almost all of the high-energy electrons in the shock transition region that show a power-law distribution are accelerated in ion-skin-depth-scale magnetic flux ropes, and about half of them are accelerated by the Hall electric field and island betatron acceleration. These mechanisms can produce a power-law electron distribution, and also inject electrons into the diffusive shock acceleration. The mechanisms are applicable to quasi-parallel shocks with high Alfvén Mach numbers ( M _A > 10), including planetary bow shocks and shocks in astrophysical objects such as supernova remnants.

We perform a 2.5-dimensional particle-in-cell simulation of a quasi-parallel shock, using parameters for the Earth’s bow shock, to examine electron acceleration and heating due to magnetic reconnection. The shock transition region evolves from the ion-coupled reconnection dominant stage to the electron-only reconnection dominant stage, as time elapses. The electron temperature enhances locally in each reconnection site, and ion-scale magnetic islands generated by ion-coupled reconnection show the most significant enhancement of the electron temperature. The electron energy spectrum shows a power law, with a power-law index around 6. We perform electron trajectory tracing to understand how they are energized. Some electrons interact with multiple electron-only reconnection sties, and Fermi acceleration occurs during multiple reflections. Electrons trapped in ion-scale magnetic islands can be accelerated in another mechanism. Islands move in the shock transition region, and electrons can obtain larger energy from the in-plane electric field than the electric potential in those islands. These newly found energization mechanisms in magnetic islands in the shock can accelerate electrons to energies larger than the achievable energies by the conventional energization due to the parallel electric field and shock drift acceleration. This study based on the selected particle analysis indicates that the maximum energy in the nonthermal electrons is achieved through acceleration in ion-scale islands, and electron-only reconnection accounts for no more than half of the maximum energy, as the lifetime of sub-ion-scale islands produced by electron-only reconnection is several times shorter than that of ion-scale islands.

Abstract We report Magnetospheric Multiscale observations of reconnection in a thin current sheet at the interface of interlinked flux tubes carried by converging reconnection jets at Earth's magnetopause. The ion skin depth‐scale width of the interface current sheet and the non‐frozen‐in ions indicate that Magnetospheric Multiscale crossed the reconnection layer near the X‐line, through the ion diffusion region. Significant pileup of the reconnecting component of the magnetic field in this and three other events on approach to the interface current sheet was accompanied by an increase in magnetic shear and decrease in Δβ, leading to conditions favorable for reconnection at the interface current sheet. The pileup also led to enhanced available magnetic energy per particle and strong electron heating. The observations shed light on the evolution and energy release in 3‐D systems with multiple reconnection sites.

Magnetic energy in the plasma is transferred into particle energy by magnetic reconnection. Here the authors show the two-fluid dynamics of asymmetric magnetic reconnection in two different spatial scales of plasma, namely laboratory and astrophysical plasma.

Solitary electrostatic pulses have been observed in numerous places of the magnetosphere such as the vicinity of reconnection current sheets, shocks or auroral current systems, and are often thought to be generated by energetic electron beams. We present results of a series of experiments conducted at the UCLA large plasma device (LAPD) where a suprathermal electron beam was injected parallel to a static magnetic field. Micro-probes with tips smaller than a Debye length enabled the detection of solitary pulses with positive electric potential and half-widths 4–25 Debye lengths (λDe), over a set of experiments with various beam energies, plasma densities and magnetic field strengths. The shape, scales and amplitudes of the structures are similar to those observed in space, and consistent with electron holes. The dependance of these properties on the experimental parameters is shown. The velocities of the solitary structures (1–3 background electron thermal velocities) are found to be much lower than the beam velocities, suggesting an excitation mechanism driven by parallel currents associated to the electron beam.

Electrostatic Solitary Waves (ESWs) have been observed by several spacecraft in the current layers of Earth's magnetosphere since 1982. ESWs are manifested as isolated pulses (one wave period) in the high time resolution waveform data obtained on these spacecraft. They are thus nonlinear structures generated out of nonlinear instabilities and processes. We report the first observations of ESWs associated with the onset of a super-substorm that occurred on 24 August 2005 while the Cluster spacecraft were located in the magnetotail at around 18–19 RE and moving northward from the plasma sheet to the lobes. These ESWs were detected in the waveform data of the WBD plasma wave receiver on three of the Cluster spacecraft. The majority of the ESWs were detected about 5 min after the super-substorm onset during which time 1) the PEACE electron instrument detected significant field-aligned electron fluxes from a few 100 eV to 3.5 keV, 2) the EDI instrument detected bursts of field-aligned electron currents, 3) the FGM instrument detected substantial magnetic fluctuations and the presence of Alfvén waves, 4) the STAFF experiment detected broadband electric and magnetic waves, ion cyclotron waves and whistler mode waves, and 5) CIS detected nearly comparable densities of H+ and O+ ions and a large tailward H+ velocity. We compare the characteristics of the ESWs observed during this event to those created in the laboratory at the University of California-Los Angeles Plasma Device (LAPD) with an electron beam. We find that the time durations of both space and LAPD ESWs are only slightly larger than the respective local electron plasma periods, indicating that electron, and not ion, dynamics are responsible for generation of the ESWs. We have discussed possible mechanisms for generating the ESWs in space, including the beam and kinetic Buneman type instabilities and the acoustic instabilities. Future studies will examine these mechanisms in more detail using the space measurements as inputs to models, and better relate the ESW space measurements to the laboratory through PIC code models.

Through case studies involving Cluster waveform observations, solitary waves in the form of bipolar and tripolar pulses have recently been found to be quite abundant in the near-Earth dayside magnetosheath. We expand on the results of those previous studies by examining the distribution of solitary waves from the bow shock to the magnetopause using Cluster waveform data. Cluster's orbit allows for the measurement of solitary waves in the magnetosheath from about 10 RE to 19.5 RE. Our results clearly show that within the magnetosheath, solitary waves are likely to be observed at any distance from the bow shock and that this distance has no dependence on the time durations and amplitudes of the solitary waves. In addition we have found that these same two quantities show no dependence on either the ion velocity or the angle between the ion velocity and the local magnetic field direction. These results point to the conclusion that the solitary waves are probably created locally in the magnetosheath at multiple locations, and that the generation mechanism is most likely not solely related to ion dynamics, if at all. To gain insight into a possible local generation mechanism, we have examined the electron differential energy flux characteristics parallel and perpendicular to the magnetic field, as well as the local electron plasma and cyclotron frequencies and the type of bow shock that Cluster is behind, for several time intervals where solitary waves were observed in the magnetosheath. We have found that solitary waves are most likely to be observed when there are counterstreaming (~parallel and anti-parallel to the magnetic field) electrons at or below about 100eV. However, there are times when these counterstreaming electrons are present when solitary waves are not. During these times the background magnetic field strength is usually very low (

Isolated electrostatic structures are observed throughout much of the 4RE by 19.6RE Cluster orbit. These structures are observed in the Wideband plasma wave instrument's waveform data as bipolar pulses (one positive and one negative peak in the electric field amplitude) and tripolar pulses (two positive and one negative peak, or vice versa). These structures are observed at all of the boundary layers, in the solar wind and magnetosheath, and along auroral field lines at 4.5-6.5RE. Using the Wideband waveform data from the various Cluster spacecraft we have carried out a survey of the amplitudes and time durations of these structures and how these quantities vary with the local magnetic field strength. Such a survey has not been carried out before, and it reveals certain characteristics of solitary structures in a finite magnetic field, a topic still inadequately addressed by theories. We find that there is a broad range of electric field amplitudes at any specific magnetic field strength, and there is a general trend for the electric field amplitudes to increase as the strength of the magnetic field increases over a range of 5 to 500nT. We provide a possible explanation for this trend that relates to the structures being Bernstein-Greene-Kruskal mode solitary waves. There is no corresponding dependence of the duration of the structures on the magnetic field strength, although a plot of these two quantities reveals the unexpected result that with the exception of the magnetosheath, all of the time durations for all of the other regions are comparable, whereas the magnetosheath time durations clearly are in a different category of much smaller time duration. We speculate that this implies that the structures are much smaller in size. The distinctly different pulse durations for the magnetosheath pulses indicate the possibility that the pulses are generated by a mechanism which is different from the mechanism operating in other regions.

We report on recent measurements of solitary waves made by the Wideband Plasma Wave Receiver located on each of the four Cluster spacecraft at 4.5-6.5RE (well above the auroral acceleration region) as they cross field lines that map to the auroral zones. These solitary waves are observed in the Wideband data as isolated bipolar and tripolar waveforms. Examples of the two types of pulses are provided. The time durations of the majority of both types of solitary waves observed in this region range from about 0.3 up to 5ms. Their peak-to-peak amplitudes range from about 0.05 up to 20mV/m, with a few reaching up to almost 70mV/m. There is essentially no potential change across the bipolar pulses. There appears to be a small, measurable potential change, up to 0.5V, across the tripolar pulses, which is consistent with weak or hybrid double layers. A limited cross-spacecraft correlation study was carried out in order to identify the same solitary wave on more than one spacecraft. We found no convincing correlations of the bipolar solitary waves. In the two cases of possible correlation of the tripolar pulses, we found that the solitary waves are propagating at several hundred to a few thousand km/s and that they are possibly evolving (growing, decaying) as they propagate from one spacecraft to the next. Further, they have a perpendicular (to the magnetic field) width of 50km or greater and a parallel width of about 2-5km. We conclude, in general, however, that the Cluster spacecraft at separations along and perpendicular to the local magnetic field direction of tens of km and greater are too large to obtain positive correlations in this region. Looking at the macroscale of the auroral zone at 4.5-6.5RE, we find that the onsets of the broadband electrostatic noise associated with the solitary waves observed in the spectrograms of the WBD data are generally consistent with propagation of the solitary waves up the field lines (away from Earth), or with particles or waves propagating up the field line, which leads to local generation of the solitary waves all along the field lines. A discussion of the importance of these solitary waves in magnetospheric processes and their possible generation mechanisms, through electron beam instabilities and turbulence, is provided.

This paper presents new results for 1D BGK electron solitary wave (phase-space electron hole) solutions and, based on the new results, extends the solutions to include the 3D electrical interaction (E ~ 1/r 2) of charged particles. Our approach for extending to 3D is to solve the nonlinear 3D Poisson and 1D Vlasov equations based on a key feature of 1D electron hole (EH) solutions; the positive core of an EH is screened by electrons trapped inside the potential energy trough. This feature has not been considered in previous studies. We illustrate this key feature using an analytical model and argue that the feature is independent of any specific model. We then construct azimuthally symmetric EH solutions under conditions where electrons are highly field-aligned and ions form a uniform background along the magnetic field. Our results indicate that, for a single humped electric potential, the parallel cut of the perpendicular component of the electric field (E⊥) is unipolar and that of the parallel component (E||) bipolar, reproducing the multi-dimensional features of the solitary waves observed by the FAST satellite. Our analytical solutions presented in this article capture the 3D electric interaction and the observed features of (E|| ) and E⊥. The solutions predict a dependence of the parallel width-amplitude relation on the perpendicular size of EHs. This dependence can be used in conjunction with experimental data to yield an estimate of the typical perpendicular size of observed EHs; this provides important information on the perpendicular span of the source region as well as on how much electrostatic energy is transported by the solitary waves.