Abstract. Thin current sheets represent important and puzzling sites of magnetic energy storage and subsequent fast release. Such structures are observed in planetary magnetospheres, solar atmosphere and are expected to be widespread in nature. The thin current sheet structure resembles a collapsing MHD solution with a plane singularity. Being potential sites of effective energy accumulation, these structures have received a good deal of attention during the last decade, especially after the launch of the multiprobe CLUS-TER mission which is capable of resolving their 3D features. Many theoretical models of thin current sheet dynamics, including the well-known current sheet bifurcation, have been developed recently. A self-consistent 1D analytical model of thin current sheets in which the tension of the magnetic field lines is balanced by the ion inertia rather than by the plasma pressure gradients was developed earlier. The influence of the anisotropic electron population and of the corresponding electrostatic field that acts to restore quasi-neutrality of the plasma is taken into account. It is assumed that the electron motion is fluid-like in the direction perpendicular to the magnetic field and fast enough to support quasi-equilibrium Boltzmann distribution along the field lines. Electrostatic effects lead to an interesting feature of the current density profile inside the current sheet, i.e. a narrow sharp peak of electron current in the very center of the sheet due to fast curvature drift of the particles in this region. The corresponding magnetic field profile becomes much steeper near the neutral plane although the total cross-tail current is in all cases dominated by the ion contribution. The dependence of electrostatic effects on the ion to electron temperature ratio, the curvature of the magnetic field lines, and the average electron magnetic moment is also analyzed. The implications of these effects on the fine structure of thin current sheets and their potential impact on substorm dynamics are presented.

Abstract. The eigenmodes of low frequency perturbations of thin anisotropic current sheets with a finite value of the normal magnetic field, are investigated in this paper. It is shown that two possible polarizations of symmetric and asymmetric modes (sausage and kink) exist where the growth rate of instabilities is positive. In addition, we demonstrate that a tearing instability might have a positive growth rate in thin anisotropic current sheets. The class of relatively fast wavy flapping oscillations observed by Cluster is described. The main direction of wave motion coincides with the direction of the current and the typical velocity of this motion is comparable with the plasma drift velocity in the current sheet. The comparison of these characteristics with theoretical predictions of the model of anisotropic thin current sheets, demonstrates that, in principle, the theory adequately describes the observations.

Abstract. Current density profiles of 22 thin current sheets, crossed by four Cluster spacecraft in the magnetotail are compared with the self-consistent model of anisotropic 1-D equilibrium, including several species of quasi-adiabatic (transient) ions and drifting electrons. In order to examine ion-scale features of the current density profile Cluster data from the 2001 and 2004 tail seasons were used when the spacecraft separation was about 2000 and 1000 km, respectively, while electron-scale features are studied using Cluster data from the 2003 season , when the spacecraft separation was about 200 km. The model ion and electron current density peaks embedded in a background plasma sheet successfully reproduce observed profiles. Stability criteria of the model current sheet are also consistent with the experiment.