Occurrence of Flat-top Electron Velocity Distributions in Magnetotail Plasma Jets
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arXiv
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| Auteurs principaux: | , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
| Publié: |
2026
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| _version_ | 1866913011927613440 |
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| author | Richard, Louis Khotyaintsev, Yuri V. Norgren, Cecilia |
| author_facet | Richard, Louis Khotyaintsev, Yuri V. Norgren, Cecilia |
| contents | Non-Maxwellian electron velocity distributions (eVDFs) are ubiquitous in collisionless plasmas. For example, various types of non-Maxwellian eVDFs exist in magnetic reconnection jets in the Earth's magnetotail. At thermal energies, eVDF can be flat-topped due to electron trapping associated with magnetic reconnection. However, the occurrence of such eVDFs in magnetotail reconnection remains largely unconstrained. Here, we statistically investigate flat-top eVDFs in fast plasma jets in the magnetotail using a new method for classifying eVDFs. We show that only $\sim 7\%$ of the eVDFs in the jets are flat-tops. Nevertheless, we find that most jets exhibit flat-top eVDFs, indicating that this signature of parallel acceleration and electron streaming is characteristic of the jets. We find that these flat-top eVDFs are localized within an ion-inertial-length-scale region near the edges of the current sheet and close to the reconnection region. Our results highlight the importance of flat-top eVDFs in non-local thermodynamic equilibrium collisionless plasmas. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_05992 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Occurrence of Flat-top Electron Velocity Distributions in Magnetotail Plasma Jets Richard, Louis Khotyaintsev, Yuri V. Norgren, Cecilia Plasma Physics Non-Maxwellian electron velocity distributions (eVDFs) are ubiquitous in collisionless plasmas. For example, various types of non-Maxwellian eVDFs exist in magnetic reconnection jets in the Earth's magnetotail. At thermal energies, eVDF can be flat-topped due to electron trapping associated with magnetic reconnection. However, the occurrence of such eVDFs in magnetotail reconnection remains largely unconstrained. Here, we statistically investigate flat-top eVDFs in fast plasma jets in the magnetotail using a new method for classifying eVDFs. We show that only $\sim 7\%$ of the eVDFs in the jets are flat-tops. Nevertheless, we find that most jets exhibit flat-top eVDFs, indicating that this signature of parallel acceleration and electron streaming is characteristic of the jets. We find that these flat-top eVDFs are localized within an ion-inertial-length-scale region near the edges of the current sheet and close to the reconnection region. Our results highlight the importance of flat-top eVDFs in non-local thermodynamic equilibrium collisionless plasmas. |
| title | Occurrence of Flat-top Electron Velocity Distributions in Magnetotail Plasma Jets |
| topic | Plasma Physics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.05992 |