Theory of coherent electron-scale magnetic structures in space plasma turbulence

Abstract

Recent spacecraft observations in the solar wind and in the Earth’s magnetosheath indicate that the dissipation range of magnetic turbulence probably takes place at electron scales. Here, we derive nonlinear electron magnetohydrodynamic (EMHD) equations for warm plasma, i.e. with the ratio of thermodynamic and magnetic pressures, . This model describes plasma turbulence under the solar wind and magnetosheath conditions on the electron spatial scales and with the characteristic frequency that does not exceed the electron gyrofrequency. We show that at electron scales and in the presence of a sufficiently large temperature anisotropy , there exist self-organized, coherent, nonlinear dipole vortex structures associated with obliquely propagating whistler waves. These can be visualized as pairs of counterstreaming helicoidal currents that produce both the compressional and torsional perturbations of the magnetic field. In contrast to the previously known long-range EMHD dipolar vortices in a cold plasma, this novel solution is an evanescent mode, strongly localized in space (with wave numbers ). It can constitute a building block for the plasma turbulence at short scales and provide a possible scenario of turbulence dissipation at electron scales.