[P-EM13] [EE] Exploring space plasma processes with Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission

[PEM13-17] MMS Observation of Inverse Energy Dispersion in Shock Drift Accelerated Ions

*Sun Hee Lee¹, David G. Sibeck¹, Kyoung-Joo Hwang^1,2, Yongfu Wang³, Marcos V. D. Silveira¹, Christina Chu⁴, Barry Mauk⁵, Ian J. Cohen⁵, George C. Ho⁵, Glenn M. Mason⁵, Robert E. Gold⁵, Jim L. Burch⁶, Barbara L. Giles¹, Roy B. Tobert⁷, Christopher T. Russell⁸, Hanying Wei⁸ (1.NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA., 2.Goddard Planetary and Heliophysics Institute, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD 21228, USA., 3.Institute of Space Physics and Applied Technology School of Earth and Space Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China., 4.University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK 99775, USA., 5.The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, 11100 Johns Hopkins Rd., Laurel, MD 20723, USA., 6.Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, TX, USA., 7.University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, USA., 8.University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.)

The four Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) spacecraft observed a ~1 min burst of energetic ions (50-1000 keV) in the region upstream from the subsolar quasi-perpendicular bow shock on December 6, 2015.
The composition, flux levels, and spectral indices of these energetic protons, helium, and oxygen ions greatly resemble those seen in the outer magnetosphere earlier while MMS crossed the magnetopause and differ significantly from those simultaneously observed far upstream by ACE.
However, the event cannot be explained solely in terms of leakage from the magnetosphere. The strongly southward orientation of the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) lines at the time of the event precludes any connection to the magnetosphere. This point is confirmed by the presence of energetic electrons, known to occur on magnetic field lines that graze the bow shock rather than connect to the magnetosphere.
We suggest that the ions gradient drifted out of the nearby quasi-parallel foreshock and into the quasi-perpendicular bow shock. Each of the ion species exhibited an inverse energy dispersion. As predicted by models for shock drift acceleration, the energies of the ions increased as Θ_Bn, the angle between the IMF and the shock normal, increased. Finally, we note that a similar event was observed a few minutes later in the subsolar magnetosheath, indicating that such events can be swept downstream of the bow shock.