MMS-Cluster conjugate observation of disturbance in the current sheet associated with localized fast flow in the near-Earth magnetotail
- 1Space Research Institute, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Graz, Austria
- 2Space Science Institute, Boulder, CO, USA
- 3Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, Texas, USA.
- 4The Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College London, London, UK.
- 5Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Toulouse, France.
- 6ESA/ESTEC, Nordwijk, The Netherlands
- 7Mullard Space Science Laboratory, University College London, Dorking, UK
- 8NASA, Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, USA.
- 9St. Petersburg University, St. Petersburg, Russia
- 10Laboratoire de Physique des Plasmas, CNRS/Ecole Polytechnique/UPMC Univ Paris 06/University Paris-Sud/Observatoire de Paris, Paris, France
- 11ISAS/JAXA, Sagamihara, Japan
- 12IGPP, UCLA, Los Angeles, USA
- 13Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space, University New Hampshire, Durham, New Hampshire, USA
We report the evolution of the current sheet associated with a localized flow burst in the near-Earth magnetotail on Sep. 8, 2018 around 14 UT when MMS (Magnetospheric Multiscale) and Cluster at about X=17 RE, separated mainly in the dawn-dusk direction at a distance of about 4 RE, encountered at duskside and dawnside part of a dipolarization front, respectively. We analyzed the mesoscale current sheet disturbances based on multi-point data analysis between Cluster and MMS. It is shown that the current sheet thickens associated with the passage of the dipolarization front confirming results from previous statistical studies. The thickness of the current sheet, however, decreased subsequently, before recovering toward the original configuration. MMS observed enhanced field aligned currents exclusively during this thinning of the current sheet at the off-equatorial region. Multiple layers of small-scale, intense field-aligned currents accompanied by enhanced Hall-currents were detected at this region. Based on these mesoscale and microscale multipoint observations, we infer the current structures around the localized flow and discuss the role of these mesoscale flow processes in the larger-scale magnetotail dynamics.
How to cite: Nakamura, R., Baumjohann, W., Birn, J., Burch, J., Carr, C., Dandouras, I., Escoubet, P., Fazakerley, A., Giles, B., Kubyshkina, M., Le Contel, O., Nagai, T., Nakamura, T., Panov, E., Russell, C., Sergeev, V., and Torbert, R.: MMS-Cluster conjugate observation of disturbance in the current sheet associated with localized fast flow in the near-Earth magnetotail, EGU General Assembly 2020, Online, 4–8 May 2020, EGU2020-3254, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-3254, 2020.