Physics – Plasma Physics
Scientific paper
Dec 2011
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011agufmsh42b..07c&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2011, abstract #SH42B-07
Physics
Plasma Physics
[7513] Solar Physics, Astrophysics, And Astronomy / Coronal Mass Ejections, [7526] Solar Physics, Astrophysics, And Astronomy / Magnetic Reconnection, [7839] Space Plasma Physics / Nonlinear Phenomena, [7863] Space Plasma Physics / Turbulence
Scientific paper
We study the relation between current sheets, turbulence and magnetic reconnections at the leading edge of an interplanetary coronal mass ejection (ICME) intercepted by the four Cluster spacecraft in the solar wind upstream of the Earth's bow shock on 2005 January 21 (Chian & Munoz, ApJ 733, L34, 2011). We report the observational evidence of two magnetically reconnected current sheets in the vicinity of a front magnetic cloud boundary layer (MCBL) with the following characteristics: (1) a Kolmogorov power spectrum in the inertial subrange of the magnetic turbulence, (2) the scaling exponent of structure functions of magnetic fluctuations exhibiting multi-fractal scaling predicted by the She-Leveque magnetohydrodynamic model, and (3) bifurcated current sheets with the current density computed by both single-spacecraft and multi-spacecraft techniques. Current sheets and magnetic reconnections play a fundamental role in the heliosphere, as demonstrated by a statistical analysis of boundary layers formed by the interaction between magnetic clouds and the ambient solar wind, and confirmed by numerical simulations. In fact, magnetic reconnection exhausts have been detected at the front and rear edges of a number of ICMEs. Hence, our study is key to understand the dynamics and structure of ICME boundary layers, and can aid in forecasting the onset of a geomagnetic storm driven by an ICME. Our methodology can be readily applied to other turbulent boundary layers of astrophysical plasmas, such as termination and bow shocks of the heliosphere and astrospheres. Further investigations of the coupling of magnetic cloud and solar wind will improve our understanding of the dynamics of star-planet relations and search for exoplanets.
Chian A. C.
Muñoz Roberto P.
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