Observational evidence for self-generation of small-scale magnetic flux ropes from intermittent solar wind turbulence

Abstract

We present unique {and additional} observational evidence for the self-generation of small-scale coherent magnetic flux rope structures in the solar wind. Such structures with durations between 9 and 361 minutes are identified from Wind in-situ spacecraft measurements through the Grad-Shafranov (GS) reconstruction approach. The event occurrence counts are on the order of 3,500 per year on average and have a clear solar cycle dependence. We build a database of small-scale magnetic flux ropes from twenty-year worth of Wind spacecraft data. We show a power-law distribution of the wall-to-wall time corresponding well to the inertial range turbulence, which agrees with relevant observations and numerical simulation results. We also provide the axial current density distribution from the GS-based observational analysis, which yields a non-Gaussian probability density function consistent with numerical simulation results.

To appear in ApJL

References in corpus (2)

• Magnetic Reconnection and Intermittent Turbulence in the Solar Wind
• Thermodynamic ground states of platinum metal nitrides

Cited by in corpus (13)

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• Switchbacks near Boundaries of Small-scale Magnetic Flux Ropes in the Young Solar Wind from Parker Solar Probe Observations
• Small-scale magnetic flux ropes and their properties based on in-situ measurements from Parker Solar Probe
• Current sheets, plasmoids and flux ropes in the heliosphere. Part II: Theoretical aspects