THEMIS observations of mirror structures: Magnetic holes and instability threshold

Nonpropagating mirror-mode structures are commonly observed in many regions of natural plasma such as solar wind, planetary magnetosheaths, in cometary plasma, Io wake, terrestrial ring current and even on the outskirts of solar system. Mirror structures are typically observed in the shape of magnetic holes or peaks. Fast survey mode plasma data from the THEMIS satellites are used to solve the puzzle of how mirror structures in the form of dips can be observed in the regions of mirror stable plasma. THEMIS data also show that for mirror structures with spatial scales that considerably exceed ion Larmor radius the perpendicular temperature anticorrelates with the strength of the magnetic field. This contradiction with the conservation of adiabatic invariants is explained by the role of trapped particles. Citation: Balikhin, M. A., R. Z. Sagdeev, S. N. Walker, O. A. Pokhotelov, D. G. Sibeck, N. Beloff, and G. Dudnikova (2009), THEMIS observations of mirror structures: Magnetic holes and instability threshold, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L03105, doi: 10.1029/2008GL036923.