Relationship between Current Filaments and Turbulence During a Turbulent Reconnection

Abstract

Both magnetic reconnection and turbulence can play crucial roles in space plasmas. The current layers, developing during magnetic reconnection, can collapse into various small-scale coherent structures, such as current filaments. These current filaments can significantly modulate the kinetic-scale turbulence. However, the quantitative correlation between the current filaments and turbulence remains unknown so far. In this study, we statistically analyze such a relation during a turbulent reconnection in the magnetotail. We find that the kinetic-scale turbulence has a good correlation with the current-density variation . Specifically, (1) the slope of the kinetic-scale power spectral density (PSD), denoted as S PSD , decreases with J ′, exhibiting an empirical relation S PSD  = −0.54ln( J ′) − 1.36; (2) the correlation between turbulence intensity (PSD) and J ′ is best at the frequency range 0.02–0.32 ω ce (electron cyclotron frequency); (3) the turbulence intensity (PSD) increases with J ′, exhibiting an empirical relation PSD =  J ′ k  •  e b ; and (4) the k of these fitting functions roughly decreases with frequency. These results can advance our understanding of the interplay between magnetic reconnection and turbulence.