Kinetic models of solar wind current sheets

Thomas Neukirch, Ivan Vasko, Anton Artemyev, Oliver Allanson

Research output: Contribution to conferencePoster

Abstract

Current sheets in the collisionless solar wind usually have kinetic spatial scales. In-situ measurements
show that these current sheets are often approximately force-free, i.e. the directions of their current
density and magnetic field are aligned, despite the fact that the plasma beta is found to be of the order of one.
The measurements also often show systematic asymmetric spatial variations of the plasma density and
temperature across the current sheets, whilst the plasma pressure is approximately uniform.
Neukirch et al. (2020) found exact equilibrium models of force-free collisionless current sheets which
allowed for asymmetric plasma density and temperature gradients. These models assumed that the form of the distribution function for electrons and ions is the same. In this contribution we generalise this approach to current sheets with static ions. As a consequence the force-free condition is only satisfied approximately and quasi-neutrality requires the presence of a nonvanishing electric potential.
Original languageEnglish
Number of pages4
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jul 2022
Event48th European Physical Society Conference on Plasma Physics, EPS 2022 - Virtual, Online
Duration: 27 Jun 20221 Jul 2022

Conference

Conference48th European Physical Society Conference on Plasma Physics, EPS 2022
CityVirtual, Online
Period27/06/221/07/22

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