Three dimensional anisotropic κ spectra of turbulence at subproton scales in the solar wind.

We show the first three dimensional (3D) dispersion relations and k spectra of magnetic turbulence in the solar wind at subproton scales. We used the Cluster data with short separations and applied the k-filtering technique to the frequency range where the transition to subproton scales occurs. We show that the cascade is carried by highly oblique kinetic Alfvén waves with ω(plas) ≤ 0.1ω(ci) down to k(⊥) ρ(i)∼2. Each k spectrum in the direction perpendicular to B0 shows two scaling ranges separated by a breakpoint (in the interval [0.4,1]k(⊥)ρ(i): a Kolmogorov scaling k(⊥)⁻¹â±7 followed by a steeper scaling ∼k(⊥)⁻4ⁱ5. We conjecture that the turbulence undergoes a transition range, where part of the energy is dissipated into proton heating via Landau damping and the remaining energy cascades down to electron scales where electron Landau damping may predominate.

Anisotropic turbulent spectra in the terrestrial magnetosheath as seen by the cluster spacecraft.

Here we report the first three-dimensional spatial spectrum of the low frequency magnetic turbulence obtained from the four Cluster spacecraft in the terrestrial magnetosheath close to the magnetopause. We show that the turbulence is compressible and dominated by mirror structures, its energy is injected at a large scale kp approximately 0.3 (l approximately 2000 km) via a mirror instability well predicted by linear theory, and cascades nonlinearly and unexpectedly up to kp approximately 3.5 (l approximately 150 km), revealing a new power law in the inertial range not predicted by any turbulence theory, and its strong anisotropy is controlled by the static magnetic field and the magnetopause normal.