Abstract
[1] We re-examine the basic premises of a single-spacecraft data analysis method, developed by Sonnerup and Hasegawa (2005), for determining the axis orientation and proper frame velocity of quasi two-dimensional, quasi-steady structures of magnetic field and plasma. The method, which is based on Faraday's law, makes use of magnetic and electric field data measured by a single spacecraft traversing the structure, although in many circumstances the convection electric field, − v × B, can serve as a proxy for E. It has been used with success for flux ropes observed at the magnetopause but has usually failed to provide acceptable results when applied to real space data from reconnection events as well as to virtual data from numerical MHD simulations of such events. In the present paper, the reasons for these shortcomings are identified, analyzed, and discussed in detail. Certain basic properties of the method are presented in the form of five theorems, the last of which makes use of singular value decomposition to treat the special case where the magnetic variance matrix is non-invertible. These theorems are illustrated using data from analytical models of flux ropes and also from MHD simulations as well as a 2-D kinetic simulation of reconnection. The results make clear that the method requires the presence of a significant, non-removable electric field distribution in the plane transverse to the invariant direction and that it is sensitive to deviations from strict two-dimensionality and strict time stationarity.
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