Magnetospheric Multiscale Observations of Flux-Rope Interactions in the Turbulent Terrestrial Magnetosheath

Recent global hybrid and fully kinetic simulations of the terrestrial magnetosphere have shown that the turbulent quasi-parallel (QP) magnetosheath contains multi-scale interacting structures such as jets, flux ropes, waves, vortices, reconnecting current sheets, over the fluid, ion and electron scales. Multi-scale flux-rope interactions in magnetosheath plasma turbulence downstream of a QP shock are investigated on the basis of particle, plasma and field measurements from the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission satellites. It is demonstrated that magnetic flux rope interactions are associated with magnetic flux pileup, density depletion and with formation of proton scale current sheets, electron scale spiky structures and particle heating. This study also demonstrates how patchy dissipation and plasma heating can occur in collisionless turbulent plasmas.