Authors: Sarah Horvath (The University of Iowa), Greg Howes (The University of Iowa), and Andrew McCubbin (The University of Iowa)

The field-particle correlation technique has been shown to successfully utilize single point measurements to uncover signatures of various particle energization mechanisms in turbulent space plasmas. Using this technique, the signature of ion Landau damping of non-dispersive MHD Alfvén waves has been well characterized in simulations, but the more complicated signature of electron Landau damping of dispersive kinetic Alfven waves (KAWs) is less well characterized. The signature of electron Landau damping has been found in both simulations and in situ data from Earth’s magnetosheath, and has been shown to contain more structure than the simple bipolar structure of signatures of ion Landau damping. These signatures call for additional characterization, however, since the dispersive range of the KAWs varies throughout the heliosphere with parameters such as plasma beta. Additionally, the small spatial scales and short time scales of the turbulent cascade below the ion Larmor radius present a practical challenge that must be overcome in order to analyze this mechanism in situ. Namely, the sampling cadence of spacecraft is often below what is required to fully resolve the wave dynamics. In this project, we seek to characterize the field-particle correlation signatures of electron Landau damping and their variation with plasma beta, as well address the theoretic prediction that the field-particle correlation technique may still recover the phase-space energization signatures of this heating mechanism despite undersampled measurements.