Observational Evidence for Self-generation of Small-scale Magnetic Flux Ropes from Intermittent Solar Wind Turbulence

We present unique and additional observational evidence for the self-generation of small-scale coherent magnetic flux rope structures in the solar wind. Such structures with durations between 9 and 361 minutes are identified from Wind in situ spacecraft measurements through the Grad-Shafranov (GS) reconstruction approach. The event occurrence counts are on the order of 3500 per year on average and have a clear solar-cycle dependence. We build a database of small-scale magnetic flux ropes from 20 yr worth of Wind spacecraft data. We show a power-law distribution of the wall-to-wall time corresponding well to the inertial range turbulence, which agrees with relevant observations and numerical simulation results. We also provide the axial current density distribution from the GS-based observational analysis, which yields a non-Gaussian probability density function consistent with numerical simulation results.