Articles | Volume 21, issue 9
https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-21-1955-2003
© Author(s) 2003. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.Special issue:
Multi-scale magnetic field intermittence in the plasma sheet
Abstract. This paper demonstrates that intermittent magnetic field fluctuations in the plasma sheet exhibit transitory, localized, and multi-scale features. We propose a multifractal-based algorithm, which quantifies intermittence on the basis of the statistical distribution of the "strength of burstiness", estimated within a sliding window. Interesting multi-scale phenomena observed by the Cluster spacecraft include large-scale motion of the current sheet and bursty bulk flow associated turbulence, interpreted as a cross-scale coupling (CSC) process.
Key words. Magnetospheric physics (magnetotail; plasma sheet) – Space plasma physics (turbulence)