High‐speed flows in the inner central plasma sheet (first reported by Baumjohann et al. (1990)) are studied, together with the concurrent behavior of the plasma and magnetic field, by using AMPTE/IRM data from ≈ 9 to 19 R_E in the Earth's magnetotail. The conclusions drawn from the detailed analysis of a representative event are reinforced by a superposed epoch analysis applied on 2 years of data. The high‐speed flows organize themselves in 10‐min time scale flow enhancements which we call bursty bulk flow (BBF) events. Both temporal and spatial effects are responsible for their bursty nature. The flow velocity exhibits peaks of very large amplitude with a characteristic time scale of the order of a minute, which are usually associated with magnetic field dipolarizations and ion temperature increases. The BBFs represent intervals of enhanced earthward convection and energy transport per unit area in the y‐z GSM direction of the order of 5×10¹⁹ ergs/R_E².

The quasi‐linear velocity space diffusion is considered for waves of any oscillation branch propagating at an arbitrary angle to a uniform magnetic field in a spatially uniform plasma. The space‐averaged distribution function is assumed to change slowly compared to a gyroperiod and characteristic times of the wave motion. Nonlinear mode coupling is neglected. An H‐like theorem shows that both resonant and nonresonant quasi‐linear diffusion force the particle distributions towards marginal stablity. Creation of the marginally stable state in the presence of a sufficiently broad wave spectrum in general involves diffusing particles to infinite energies, and so the marginally stable plateau is not accessible physically, except in special cases. Resonant particles with velocities much larger than typical phase velocities in the excited spectrum are scattered primarily in pitch angle about the magnetic field. Only particles with velocities the order of the wave phase velocities or less are scattered in energy at a rate comparable with their pitch angle scattering rate.