SM041-0013
MMS and Cluster conjugate observation of current sheet disturbances associated with localized fast flows in the near-Earth magnetotail

Tuesday, 15 December 2020
Poster
Rumi Nakamura1, Wolfgang Baumjohann1, Takuma K. M. Nakamura1, Evgeny V Panov1, Sergey Apatenkov2, Joachim Birn3, James Burch4, Chris Carr5, Iannis S Dandouras6, C Philippe Escoubet7, Andrew Neil Fazakerley8, Barbara L Giles9, Tsugunobu Nagai10, Christopher T Russell11, Victor A Sergeev2 and Roy B Torbert12, (1)Space Research Institute, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Graz, Austria, (2)St Petersburg State University, St Petersburg, Russia, (3)Space Science Institute, Boulder, CO, United States, (4)Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, TX, United States, (5)Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom, (6)IRAP, Toulouse, France, (7)ESTEC/ESA, Noordwijk, Netherlands, (8)Mullard Space Science Lab., Dorking, United Kingdom, (9)NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, United States, (10)ISAS/JAXA, Sagamihara, Japan, (11)University of California, Los Angeles, CA, United States, (12)Univ New Hampshire, Durham, NH, United States
Abstract:
We report fast flow associated near-Earth magnetotail current sheet disturbances based on conjugate multi-point observations by MMS (Magnetospheric Multiscale) and Cluster probes near the onset of a small substorm around 14 UT, Sep. 8, 2018. Both MMS and Cluster were located about X=17 RE, separated mainly in the dawn-dusk direction by a distance of about 4 RE, when they encountered a localized fast flow nearly simultaneously. We analyzed the mesoscale current sheet disturbances based on multi-point data analysis between Cluster and MMS. The analysis has revealed that the current sheet thickened during the passage of the front of the fast flow, in agreement with results from previous statistical studies. The thickness of the current sheet, however, decreased subsequently, before recovering toward the original configuration. MMS observed enhanced off-equatorial field aligned currents exclusively during this thinning of the current sheet. The fine structure of the field-aligned currents consisted of multiple small-scale intense current layers accompanied by enhanced Hall-currents. Based on these mesoscale and small-scale multipoint observations, we infer the 3D current structures around the localized flow and compare with those predicted with those predicted in the reconstructed current wedge. to discuss the context of the flow observation in large-scale magnetotail dynamics.
<< Previous Abstract | Next Abstract >>