Multi-beam energy moments of measured compound ion velocity distributions

Compound ion distributions, fi(v), have been measured with high-time resolution by NASA's Magnetospheric Multi-Scale Mission (MMS) and found in reconnection simulations. A compound distribution, consisting, for example, of essentially disjoint pieces will be called a multi-beam distribution modeled as sum “beams,” fi(v) = f1(v) + ? fN(v). Velocity moments are taken beam summed. Such advantages over the customary standard velocity which there is only one mean flow velocity. For thermal energy moment pair equal opposite cold particle beams non-zero even though each has zero energy. We therefore call this pseudothermal. By contrast, two or more no pseudothermal develop three different ways approximating finding both MMS dayside magnetosphere during particle-in-cell simulation magnetotail reconnection. The methods (i) visual method centroid estimated densities determined self-consistently, (ii) k-means particles representation sorted into minimum configuration N (= k) clusters, (iii) nonlinear least squares based on fit to kappa functions. Multi-beam calculated compared density, pressure tensor, flux (heat plus enthalpy fluxes), bulk kinetic ram pressure, flux. Applying new formalism real data demonstrates detail how techniques provide insights energetics observed space plasmas.