Emergence and Detection of Electron-Scale Current Sheets in Turbulence with MMS Observations and fully kinetic 3D simulations

Abstract

The solar wind is characterized by turbulence, where a cascade produces intermittent current structures called current sheets (CS) that efficiently dissipate energy into the plasma. These have been studied with in situ spacecraft observations, but single-spacecraft techniques such as the partial variance of increments (PVI) are inherently limited since they lack spatial context. A combined analysis of in situ observations and numerical simulations can provide significant insight into the properties of intermittent structures forming in heliospheric turbulence. Understanding the size and distribution of these structures is crucial in tracing the pathways of energy dissipation and particle energization in space plasma. Using 3D fully kinetic simulations of magnetized turbulence, we identify CS via machine learning and find a complex broken-power-law distribution for the CS widths, where the power-law breaks separate ion-scale CS from electron-scale CS. Electron-scale CS dominate, with widths peaking near $2d_e$. Comparing simulations with MMS data, we test PVI as a CS detector and show it can infer CS scale, though oblique crossings inflate inferred sizes. The prevalence of electron-scale sheets suggests they may contribute to plasma heating in aggregate.