Large Bi-Polar Signature in a Perpendicular Electric Field of Two-Dimensional Electrostatic Solitary Waves Associated with Magnetic Reconnection: Statistics and Discussion

Abstract

More than 300 electrostatic solitary waves (ESWs) with a large perpendicular component which is a bi-polar waveform structure are observed in the boundary layer within the magnetic reconnection diffusion region in the near-Earth magnetotail. Such ESWs are called two-dimensional ESWs. A Singe-reconnection-based-statistical study of two-dimensional ESWs shows that: (1) ESWs can be continuously observed in the plasma sheet boundary layer (PSBL) associated with the magnetic reconnection diffusion region, and their amplitude ranges are mainly from several tens to hundreds of μV/m; (2) both one-dimension-like ESWs (very small magnitude on E⊥) and two-dimension-like ESWs (large magnitude on E⊥, which are even comparable to that in the E‖) are observed within a small time interval; (3) within the observation time spans, more than 61% of ESWs are regarded as two-dimensional ESWs for the I2D > 20%. We discuss the bi-polar structure in E⊥. The observation of ESWs with a large bi-polar structure in the perpendicular electric field gives evidence that the unique waveform differs from previous understanding from observations and simulations which suggests that it should be a uni-polar waveform structure in the E⊥ of ESWs.