# Turbulence-driven ion beams in the magnetospheric Kelvin-Helmholtz instability

## TL;DR

This paper investigates how turbulence-driven processes in the magnetospheric Kelvin-Helmholtz instability lead to ion beam formation, highlighting nonlinear wave-particle interactions as a key energy dissipation mechanism.

## Contribution

It provides the first observational evidence linking turbulence-driven ion beams to nonlinear wave-particle interactions in space plasmas.

## Key findings

- Ion beams are associated with Alfvénic turbulence.
- Nonlinear wave-particle interactions are identified as a dissipation mechanism.
- High-resolution measurements reveal cross-scale energy transfer processes.

## Abstract

The description of the local turbulent energy transfer, and the high-resolution ion distributions measured by the Magnetospheric Multiscale mission, together provide a formidable tool to explore the cross-scale connection between the fluid-scale energy cascade and plasma processes at sub-ion scales. When the small-scale energy transfer is dominated by Alfv\'enic, correlated velocity and magnetic field fluctuations, beams of accelerated particles are more likely observed. Here, for the first time we report observations suggesting the nonlinear wave-particle interaction as one possible mechanism for the energy dissipation in space plasmas.