Wiley, Journal of Geophysical Research. Space Physics, 5(120), p. 3462-3474
DOI: 10.1002/2014ja020973
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The magnetotail current sheet is active and often flaps back and forth. Knowledge about the flapping motion of current sheet is essential to explore the related magnetotail dynamic processes, e.g. plasma instabilities. Due to the inability of single-point measurements to separate the spatial-temporal variation of magnetic field, the moving velocity of flapping current sheets cannot be revealed generally until the multi-point measurements are available, e.g. the Cluster mission. Therefore, currently the flapping behaviors are hard to be resolved only relying on single-point magnetic field analysis. In this study, with minimum variance analysis, we develop a technique based on single-point magnetic field measurement to qualitatively diagnose the flapping properties including the flapping type and the travelling direction of kink-like flapping. The comparison with Cluster multipoint analysis via several cases studies demonstrates that this technique is applicable, it should, however, be used with caution especially when the local sheet surface is either quasi-horizontal, or quasi-vertical. This technique will be useful for the planetary magnetotail exploration where no multipoint observations are available.