HelioSwarm: A Multipoint, Multiscale Mission to Characterize Turbulence — arXiv2

HelioSwarm: A Multipoint, Multiscale Mission to Characterize Turbulence

physics.plasm-ph

/ Published

Jun 10, 2023

/ Categories

physics.plasm-ph astro-ph.SR physics.space-ph

/ Links

/ Authors

Kristopher G. Klein, Harlan Spence, Olga Alexandrova, Matthew Argall, Lev Arzamasskiy, Jay Bookbinder, Theodore Broeren, Damiano Caprioli, Anthony Case, Benjamin Chandran

and 40 more authors

Li-Jen Chen, Ivan Dors, Jonathan Eastwood, Colin Forsyth, Antoinette Galvin, Vincent Genot, Jasper Halekas, Michael Hesse, Butler Hine, Tim Horbury, Lan Jian

, Justin Kasper

, Matthieu Kretzschmar

, Benoit Lavraud

, Olivier Le Contel

, Alfred Mallet

, Bennett Maruca

, William Matthaeus

, Jonathan Niehof

, Helen O'Brian

, Christopher Owen

, Alessandro Retino

, Christopher Reynolds

, Alexander Schekochihin

, Charles Smith

, John Steinberg

, Michael Stevens

, Jason TenBarge

, Bernard Vasquez

, Daniel Verscharen

, Phyllis Whittlesey

, Brittany Wickizer

, Ellen Zweibel

/ Abstract

HelioSwarm (HS) is a NASA Medium-Class Explorer mission of the Heliophysics Division designed to explore the dynamic three-dimensional mechanisms controlling the physics of plasma turbulence, a ubiquitous process occurring in the heliosphere and in plasmas throughout the universe. This will be accomplished by making simultaneous measurements at nine spacecraft with separations spanning magnetohydrodynamic and sub-ion spatial scales in a variety of near-Earth plasmas. In this paper, we describe the scientific background for the HS investigation, the mission goals and objectives, the observatory reference trajectory and instrumentation implementation before the start of Phase B. Through multipoint, multiscale measurements, HS promises to reveal how energy is transferred across scales and boundaries in plasmas throughout the universe.