Particle-sounding of the spatial structure of kinetic Alfvén waves

Z.-Y. Liu, Q.-G. Zong (), R. Rankin, H. Zhang, Y.-X. Hao, J.-S. He, S.-Y. Fu, H.-H. Wu, C. Yue, C. J. Pollock and G. Le
Additional contact information
Z.-Y. Liu: Peking University
Q.-G. Zong: Peking University
R. Rankin: University of Alberta
H. Zhang: University of Alaska Fairbanks
Y.-X. Hao: GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences
J.-S. He: Peking University
S.-Y. Fu: Peking University
H.-H. Wu: Wuhan University
C. Yue: Peking University
C. J. Pollock: Denali Scientific
G. Le: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Nature Communications, 2023, vol. 14, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: Abstract Kinetic Alfvén waves (KAWs) are ubiquitous throughout the plasma universe. Although they are broadly believed to provide a potential approach for energy exchange between electromagnetic fields and plasma particles, neither the detail nor the efficiency of the interactions has been well-determined yet. The primary difficulty has been the paucity of knowledge of KAWs’ spatial structure in observation. Here, we apply a particle-sounding technique to Magnetospheric Multiscale mission data to quantitatively determine the perpendicular wavelength of KAWs from ion gyrophase-distribution observations. Our results show that KAWs’ perpendicular wavelength is statistically 2.4 $$\pm 0.7$$ ± 0.7 times proton thermal gyro-radius. This observation yields an upper bound of the energy the majority proton population can reach in coherent interactions with KAWs, that is, roughly 5.76 times proton perpendicular thermal energy. Therefore, the method and results shown here provide a basis for unraveling the effects of KAWs in dissipating energy and accelerating particles in a number of astrophysical systems, e.g., planetary magnetosphere, astrophysical shocks, stellar corona and wind, and the interstellar medium.

Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-37881-3 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:14:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-023-37881-3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-37881-3

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().