Investigation of hot Flow Anomaly structure observed near the Earth’s bow shock

The work is dedicated to investigation of Hot Flow Anomaly (HFA), formed at the front of Earth’s bows hock. Using Interball-Tail data we estimated orientation of the current sheet that was a cause of the anomaly. From the ion energy-time spectrogram we divided the anomaly into several regions. The motional electric fields near the HFA were estimated with 3D model of Earth’s bow shock. In accordance with previous investigations of HFA’s formation conditions these fields were directed towards the current sheet on both sides of it. We also provided the picture of HFA’s motion along the bow shock and calculated its speed. Analyzing ions’ bulk velocities within the HFA we found that the anomaly is expanding. This conclusion was supported by estimation of thermal and magnetic pressure balance. Ion energy-time spectrogram shows that anomaly is a complicated structure consisting of two parts—leading and trailing. Comparison of ion velocity distributions, magnetic field data and ion energy-time spectrogram provides better understanding of the phenomena and indicated the region that is the source of thermal and convective energy inside HFA.