Fig. 7: Two-dimensional (2D) slice from 3D electron distribution functions.
From: Electron Bernstein waves driven by electron crescents near the electron diffusion region
a Electron distribution functions with electron kinetic velocity of 8.6\(\times 1{0}^{3}\) km s\(^{-1}\) (corresponding to 212 eV). The green, magenta, and red arrowed lines denote the directions of VE, VB, and VE×B, respectively. The black circle represents the VE − VE×B plane perpendicular to the magnetic field B, and the two dashed circles show the ranges of \({\pm}\! 22.{5}^{\circ }\) away from the VE − VE×B plane. The blue arrowed line labeled as E\(_{{\rm{EBW}}}\), show the E\(_{\max }\) direction of the EBWs. The white dot in panel (a) and the white square in panel (b) highlight the location with the largest phase-space density of the electron crescent. The intense phase-space densities close to the VB direction corresponds to the parallel magnetosheath electrons moving towards the X line (see Fig. 3f). b 2D slice of the distribution function on the VE − VE×B plane is from the average phase-space densities within \({\pm}\! 22.{5}^{\circ }\) from the perpendicular plane. The black circle denotes the electron velocity of 8.6\(\times 1{0}^{3}\) km s\(^{-1}\). The black and blue lines show the projected directions with the peak phase-space density of the electron crescents and the E\(_{\max }\) direction, respectively.
