EGU2020-1809
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-1809
EGU General Assembly 2020
© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Lower hybrid waves at the magnetosheath separatrix region

Binbin Tang1, Wenya Li1, Daniel Graham2, Chi Wang1, Yuri Khotyaintsev2, and the MMS team*
Binbin Tang et al.
  • 1National Space Science Center, CAS, National Space Science Center, CAS, Beijing, China (bbtang@spaceweather.ac.cn)
  • 2Swedish Institute of Space Physics, Uppsala, Sweden
  • *A full list of authors appears at the end of the abstract
Lower hybrid waves are investigated at the magnetosheath separatrix region in asymmetric guide-field reconnection at Earth’s magnetopause by using MMS observations. These waves are found in a limited region, depending on the density gradient across the separatrix, and they are driven by the lower hybrid drift instability. Properties of these waves are presented: (1) the waves propagate towards the x-line due to the out-of-plane magnetic field, consistent with the electron drift direction; (2) the wave potential is about 20% of the electron temperature. These drift waves effectively produce cross-field particle diffusion, enabling the entry of magnetosheath electrons into the exhaust region.
MMS team:

B. L. Giles, P. -A. Lindqvist, R. E. Ergun, C. T. Russell, and J. L. Burch

How to cite: Tang, B., Li, W., Graham, D., Wang, C., and Khotyaintsev, Y. and the MMS team: Lower hybrid waves at the magnetosheath separatrix region, EGU General Assembly 2020, Online, 4–8 May 2020, EGU2020-1809, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-1809, 2019

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