Spectral scaling in the turbulent Earth's plasma sheet revisited
Publication date: 25 September 2007
Authors: Vörös, Z. et al.
Journal: Nonlinear Processes in Geophysics
Volume: 14
Issue: 4
Page: 535-541
Year: 2007
Copyright: Copernicus
Bursty bulk flow associated magnetic fluctuations exhibit at least three spectral scaling ranges in the Earth's plasma sheet. Two of the three scaling ranges can be associated with multi-scale magnetohydrodynamic turbulence between the spatial scales from ~100 km to several RE (RE is the Earth's radius). These scales include the inertial range and below ~0.5 RE a steepened scaling range, theoretically not fully understood yet. It is shown that, in the near-Earth plasma sheet, the inertial range can be robustly identified only if multi-scale quasi stationary (MSQS) data intervals are selected. Multiple bursty flow associated magnetic fluctuations, however, exhibit 1/f type scaling indicating that large-scale fluctuations are controlled by multiple uncorrelated driving sources of the bulk flows (e.g. magnetic reconnection, instabilities).
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