Intermittency at Earth’s bow shock: Measures of turbulence in
quasi-parallel and quasi-perpendicular shocks
Abstract
Recent simulations and observations have revealed reconnecting current
sheets in the turbulent transition region of Earth’s bow shock. However,
the link between reconnection in the shock and turbulent reconnection in
the magnetosheath is unknown. We have therefore used observations from
Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) over four separate bow shock crossings
of varying θ_Bn to characterise turbulence in the shock transition
region and how it evolves towards the magnetosheath. We fit power laws
to the magnetic spectrum over many short intervals, allowing us to
observe the spectrum evolving. We find that we can separate the
behaviour of the power-law index in the shock transition region from
that of the upstream and downstream plasma when θ_Bn is in the
quasi-perpendicular range (45º