Beta-dependent Properties of Solar Wind Current Sheets at 1 au

Abstract We utilize plasma turbulence in interplanetary coronal mass ejections as a natural laboratory to analyze more than 4600 current sheets observed over a broad range of electron and proton beta values, 10 −2 ≲ β e ≲ 10 and 10 −3 ≲ β p ≲ 10. The analysis shows that the shear angle Δ θ and the thickness λ CS of the current sheets depend on both electron and proton beta. Specifically, the dependencies on electron beta are <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">Δ</mml:mi> <mml:mi>θ</mml:mi> <mml:mo>≈</mml:mo> <mml:mn>12</mml:mn> <mml:mo>.</mml:mo> <mml:mn>6</mml:mn> <mml:mo>°</mml:mo> <mml:mspace width="0.25em"/> <mml:msubsup> <mml:mi>β</mml:mi> <mml:mi>e</mml:mi> <mml:mn>0.41</mml:mn> </mml:msubsup> </mml:math> and <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:msub> <mml:mi>λ</mml:mi> <mml:mi>CS</mml:mi> </mml:msub> <mml:mo>/</mml:mo> <mml:msub> <mml:mi>λ</mml:mi> <mml:mi>p</mml:mi> </mml:msub> <mml:mo>≈</mml:mo> <mml:mn>1.9</mml:mn> <mml:mspace width="0.25em"/> <mml:msubsup> <mml:mi>β</mml:mi> <mml:mi>e</mml:mi> <mml:mn>0.26</mml:mn> </mml:msubsup> </mml:math> , where λ p is the local proton inertial length. We argue that the beta dependence of the shear angle is an intrinsic feature of solar wind turbulence arising from the natural correlation between turbulence intensity and plasma beta. In contrast, the beta dependence of current sheet scales is likely a general characteristic of plasma turbulence. According to recent theory, current sheets formed in turbulence are disrupted by the electron tearing instability once their thickness is smaller than a critical scale. We demonstrate that normalizing the thickness of current sheets by this critical scale eliminates the dependence on beta across the entire range of plasma beta. This observation not only supports the theory suggesting that current sheets mediate the transition from the inertial to the kinetic cascade through the electron tearing instability, but also demonstrates the plausibility of similar processes in astrophysical plasma. The presented results also indicate that the theory may be applicable beyond its formal limits, m e / m i ≪ β ≪ 1.