# Analysis of a fast flow series associated with a substorm event detected by MMS

Olivier Le Contel, Hugo Breuillard, Alessandro Retinò, Filomena Catapano, Alexandra Alexandrova, Rumi Nakamura, Thomas Chust, Laurent Mirioni, Drew Turner, Ian Cohen, et al.

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Olivier Le Contel, Hugo Breuillard, Alessandro Retinò, Filomena Catapano, Alexandra Alexandrova, et al.. Analysis of a fast flow series associated with a substorm event detected by MMS. 20th EGU General Assembly, Apr 2018, Vienne, Austria. pp.16724. insu-03566320

HAL Id: insu-03566320

https://insu.hal.science/insu-03566320

Submitted on 11 Feb 2022

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Analysis of a fast flow series associated with a substorm event detected by
MMS

Olivier Le Contel (1), Hugo Breuillard (2), Alessandro Retinò (1), Filomena Catapano (1), Alexandra
Alexandrova (1), Rumi Nakamura (3), Thomas Chust (1), Laurent Mirioni (1), Drew Turner (4), Ian Cohen (5),
Trevor Leonard (6), Christian Jacquey (7), Benoit Lavraud (7), Daniel J. Gershman (8), Stefen A. Fuselier (9),
Matthew R. Argall (10), David Fischer (3), Daniel Graham (11), Shiyong Huang (12), and the MMS team

(1) LPP (UMR7648)/CNRS-Ecole Polytechnique/SU/Paris Sud 11/Obs. de Paris, Paris, France
(olivier.lecontel@lpp.polytechnique.fr), (2) LPC2E (UMR7328)/CNRS/université d'Orléans, Orléans, France, (3) Space
Research Institute, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Graz, Austria, (4) Space Sciences Department, The Aerospace
Corporation, El Segundo, California, USA, (5) The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Maryland,
USA, (6) LASP, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA, (7) Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie,
Université de Toulouse, France, (8) NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA, (9) Southwest Research
Institute, San Antonio, TX, USA, (10) University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, USA, (11) Swedish Institute of Space
Physics, Uppsala, Sweden, (12) School of Electronic Information, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China, (13) Royal Institute of
Technology, Stockholm, Sweden, (14) Department of Earth, Planetary and Space Sciences, University of California, Los
Angeles, CA, USA

In July 2017, the MMS constellation was evolving in the magnetotail with an apogee of 25 Earth radii and an
average inter-satellite distance of 10 km (i.e. at electron scales). On 23rd of July around 16:19 UT, MMS was
located at the edge of the current sheet which was in a quasi-static state. Then, MMS suddenly entered in the
central plasma sheet and detected the local onset of a small substorm as indicated by the AE index (~400 nT).
Fast earthward plasma flows were measured during about 1 hour starting with a period of quasi-steady flow and
followed by a saw-tooth like series of plasma jets. This plasma transport sequence ended up by a flow reversal
still occurring close to the magnetic equator. Thanks to the unprecedented MMS measurement capability, these
different phases are analyzed in terms of wave activity, current signatures, particle acceleration and heating. The
origin of these two phases of plasma transport is discussed.