Magnetic Field Rotations in the Solar Wind at Kinetic Scales

Abstract

The solar wind magnetic field contains rotations at a broad range of scales, which have been extensively studied in the MHD range. Here we present an extension of this analysis to the range between ion and electron kinetic scales. The distribution of rotation angles was found to be approximately log-normal, shifting to smaller angles at smaller scales almost self-similarly, but with small, statistically significant changes of shape. The fraction of energy in fluctuations with angles larger than $\alpha$ was found to drop approximately exponentially with $\alpha$, with e-folding angle $9.8^{\circ }$ at ion scales and $0.66^{\circ }$ at electron scales, showing that large angles ($\alpha >30^{\circ }$) do not contain a significant amount of energy at kinetic scales. Implications for kinetic turbulence theory and the dissipation of solar wind turbulence are discussed.

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• Evidence for Electron Landau Damping in Space Plasma Turbulence
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• Kinetic Turbulence in Astrophysical Plasmas: Waves and/or Structures?
• Kinetic-scale current sheets in the solar wind at 1 AU: Scale-dependent properties and critical current density
• The Multi-phase Turbulence Density Power Spectra in the Perseus Molecular Cloud
• Radial Evolution of Magnetic Field Fluctuations in an Interplanetary Coronal Mass Ejection Sheath
• Role of reconnection in inertial kinetic-Alfven turbulence
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• Imbalanced Turbulence Modified by Large-scale Velocity Shears in the Solar Wind