Anomalous interaction of a plasma flow with the boundary layers of a geomagnetic trap

Using the data from the Interball-1, GEOTAIL, THEMIS and CLUSTER satellites, we propose a mechanism of anomalous magnetosheath dynamics. This mechanism yields that plasma boundaries can be locally deformed over distances comparable to its thickness. In particular, the magnetospheric boundary, the magnetopause, is deformed over distances up to a few Earth radii (RE) under the pressure of supermagnetosonic plasma streams (SPSs), instead of reacting to plasma pressure decreases, as it was previously thought. Supermagnetosonic plasma streams having a kinetic pressure a few times larger than the solar wind pressure and the magnetic pressure behind the magnetopause, can crush the magnetopause and even push it outside the mean bow shock position, as determined through the average pressures balance. Anomalous magnetosheath dynamics is initiated by plasma flow anomalies (FAs), triggered by rotational discontinuities, by jumps in the solar wind pressure and by interplanetary shocks, which all interact with the bow shock. We show that the generation mechanism for SPSs, adjacent to the FA, is connected with the compensation of the FA flow reduction by the SPS enhanced flow, which is produced by polarization electric fields at the FA edges. Statistically, SPSs are extreme events, relayed with intermittency and multifractality inside the boundary layers of the geomagnetic trap. In this way, SPSs provide “long-range” interactions between global and microscales. A similar role may be played by fast concentrated flows in the geomagnetic tail, in fusion devices, in astrophysical plasmas and in hydrodynamics.