First In-Situ Observation of Rolled-up Kelvin-Helmholtz Vortices under Southward IMF with Evidence of Reconnection

Details First In-Situ Observation of Rolled-up Kelvin-Helmholtz Vortices under Southward IMF with Evidence of Reconnection First In-Situ Observation of Rolled-up Kelvin-Helmholtz Vortices under Southward IMF with Evidence of Reconnection

Dec 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009agufmsm31b1530g&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2009, abstract #SM31B-1530

Physics

[2752] Magnetospheric Physics / Mhd Waves And Instabilities, [2784] Magnetospheric Physics / Solar Wind/Magnetosphere Interactions

Scientific paper

The Kelvin-Helmholtz instability (KHI) has been considered as one of the most dominant mechanisms by which the shocked solar wind enters the almost stagnant magnetosphere at the low-latitude magnetopause. The KHI can grow nonlinearly along the flank of the magnetopause to form large-scale rolled-up vortices. These rolled-up Kelvin-Helmholtz vortices (KHV) have thus far been detected only under northward interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) conditions. In this paper, we present first in-situ observation of rolled-up KHV during southward IMF conditions, using data from a Cluster crossing of the dawn-side flank of the magnetotail. The observation of a mixture of rolled-up and not rolled-up vortices that show inconsistent variations in the scale size, the magnetic perturbation, and the boundary normal direction indicates that KHV under southward IMF might have more temporal or intermittent nature, which might explain the preferential in-situ detection of KHV under northward IMF conditions. As a consequence of the KHV nonlinear growth, plasma transport and mixing are observed within or at the edge of KHV where a variety of magnetic topologies are found, possibly due to either diffusive transport via a turbulent decay of rolled-up KHV, or anti-parallel and/or guide-field reconnection

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