Description:

Space plasmas are highly collisionless and involve several temporal and spatial length scales, which makes understanding the physical mechanisms responsible for energy transport and cross-scale couplings between these scales a challenge. These processes result in particle energization, heating and transport through plasma structures and boundaries. These processes can both result in beautiful aurora and destruction of our technological systems.

This research opportunity invites applicants who have background in spacecraft data analysis and/or theory/numerical simulations to study and collaborate in understanding these multi-scale processes and their consequences in the solar wind, Earth's magnetosphere or other planetary magnetospheres using the data from Heliophysics System Observatory spacecraft and ground-based systems, e.g., Magnetosphere Multiscale Mission (MMS) mission, various solar wind missions, and LEO satellites and various modeling tools. This opportunity offers/combines both the large-scale solar-terrestrial system studies (the Forest) and specific, detailed physical processes from MHD scales to kinetic scales (the Trees).

Some specific research topics that are encouraged, but are not limited to:

1) studying the structure and impacts of Coronating Interaction Regions (CIRs) and Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) on Earth's bow shock, magnetosheath and physical processes at the magnetopause.

2) study of magnetic reconnection and various plasma instabilities, such as Kelvin-Helmholtz Instability (KHI), drift mirror instability (DMI), fire-hose instability and associated secondary process on particle heating, acceleration and transport within solar wind-magnetosphere system (heliospheric current sheet, CIRs, CMEs, plasma sheet, magnetopause, magnetosheath)

3) Identification of plasma wave modes and study of turbulence and wave-particle interactions on plasma heating and acceleration.

4) Lunar wake interactions with the solar wind and Earth's magnetotail

Field of Science: Heliophysics Science
Advisors:

Katariina Nykyri
katariina.nykyri@nasa.gov
3012861962