The Importance of Electron Landau Damping for the Dissipation of Turbulent Energy in Terrestrial Magnetosheath Plasma

Abstract

Heliospheric plasma turbulence plays a key role in transferring the energy of large-scale magnetic field and plasma flow fluctuations to smaller scales where the energy can be dissipated, ultimately leading to plasma heating. High-quality measurements of electromagnetic fields and electron velocity distributions by the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission in Earth's magnetosheath present a unique opportunity to characterize plasma turbulence and to determine the mechanisms responsible for its dissipation. We apply the field-particle correlation technique to a set of 20 MMS magnetosheath intervals to identify the dissipation mechanism and quantify the dissipation rate. It is found that 95% of the intervals have velocity-space signatures of electron Landau damping that are quantitatively consistent with linear kinetic theory for the collisionless damping of kinetic Alfvén waves. About 75% of the intervals contain asymmetric signatures, indicating a local imbalance of kinetic Alfvén wave energy flux in one direction along the magnetic field than the other. About one-third of the intervals have an electron energization rate with the same order-of-magnitude as the estimated turbulent cascade rate, suggesting that electron Landau damping plays a significant, and sometimes dominant, role in the dissipation of the turbulent energy in these magnetosheath intervals.