Observation of Inertial-range Energy Cascade within a Reconnection Jet in Earth's Magnetotail

Abstract

Earth's magnetotail region provides a unique environment to study plasma turbulence. We investigate the turbulence developed in an exhaust produced by magnetic reconnection at the terrestrial magnetotail region. Magnetic and velocity spectra show broad-band fluctuations corresponding to the inertial range, with Kolmorogov $-5/3$ scaling, indicative of a well developed turbulent cascade. We examine the mixed, third-order structure functions, and obtain a linear scaling in the inertial range. This linear scaling of the third-order structure functions implies a scale-invariant cascade of energy through the inertial range. A Politano-Pouquet third-order analysis gives an estimate of the incompressive energy transfer rate of $\sim 10^7\mathrm{J}\mathrm{k}{\mathrm{g}}^{-1}{\mathrm{s}}^{-1}$. This is four orders of magnitude higher than the values typically measured in 1 AU solar wind, suggesting that the turbulence cascade plays an important role as a pathway of energy dissipation during reconnection events in the tail region.

arXiv commentAccepted for publication in MNRAS

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Cited by in corpus (3)

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• Are Dipolarization Fronts a Typical Feature of Magnetotail Plasma Jets Fronts?