Effects of fluctuating magnetic field on the growth of the
Kelvin-Helmholtz instability at the Earth's magnetopause
Abstract
At the Earth’s magnetopause, the Kelvin-Helmholtz (KH) instability,
driven by the persistent velocity shear between the magnetosheath and
the magnetosphere, has been frequently observed during northward
interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) periods and considered as one of the
most important candidates for transporting and mixing plasmas across the
magnetopause. However, how this process interacts with magnetic field
fluctuations, which persistently exist near the magnetopause, has been
less discussed. Here we perform a series of 2-D fully kinetic
simulations of the KH instability at the magnetopause considering a
power-law spectrum of initial fluctuations in the magnetic field. The
simulations demonstrate that when the amplitude level of the initial
fluctuations is sufficiently large, the KH instability evolves faster,
leading to a more efficient plasma mixing within the vortex layer. In
addition, when the spectral index of the initial fluctuations is
sufficiently small, the modes whose wavelength is longer than the
theoretical fastest growing mode grow dominantly. The fluctuating
magnetic field also results in the formation of the well-matured
turbulent spectrum with a -5/3 index within the vortex layer even in the
early non-linear growth phase of the KH instability. The obtained
spectral features in the simulations are in reasonable agreement with
the features in KH waves events at the magnetopause observed by the
Magntospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission and conjunctively by the Geotail
and Cluster spacecraft. These results indicate that the magnetic field
fluctuations may really contribute to enhancing the wave activities
especially for longer wavelength modes and the associated mixing at the
magnetopause.