event
Monday 25 Mar 2019: Small-Scale Structures of the Earth's Magnetopause Kelvin-Helmholtz Waves with MMS
Rungployphan Kieokaew - University of Exeter
Harrison 170 14:30-16:30
The “magnetopause” is the Earth’s magnetospheric boundary that separates the shocked solar wind stream from the magnetosphere. Under certain solar-wind conditions, the magnetopause can undulate subject to the magnetic Kelvin-Helmholtz (KH) instability, facilitating solar wind plasma transport via small-scale mechanisms that take place along the wave edges and in rolled-up vortices. Four-spacecraft missions are probing the Earth’s magnetospheric environments with capabilities in resolving 3-D plasma structures. In this talk, we will analyse KH wave observations by the four-spacecraft NASA Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission, which allows us to probe small-scale mechanisms with unprecedented high resolution. We will apply the magnetic curvature and vorticity analysis four-spacecraft techniques during KH events on structures featuring magnetic reconnection, a Flux Transfer Event, and a magnetic island. Applications and limitations of the techniques will be discussed.