Cusp Latitude and the Optimal Solar Wind Coupling Function

Details Cusp Latitude and the Optimal Solar Wind Coupling Function Cusp Latitude and the Optimal Solar Wind Coupling Function

May 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006agusmsm41d..04n&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2007, abstract #SM41D-04

Physics

2455 Particle Precipitation, 2724 Magnetopause And Boundary Layers, 2784 Solar Wind/Magnetosphere Interactions

Scientific paper

Previous work has established that the linear correlation of the low-altitude cusp latitude with the southward component of the IMF is about 0.70. Several possibly better candidate functions for determining the coupling between the magnetosphere and the solar wind have been advanced, but none have been evaluated in terms of the cusp, which is a site of direct solar wind-magnetosphere interaction. Based on 11 years of DMSP satellite particle data (1984-1994), we find that the best solar wind-magnetosphere coupling function involves electric field dimensions, such as the half-wave rectifier (vBz for Bz<0) and by the Kan-Lee electric field (EKL=vBTsin2(tc/2) where tc is the IMF cone angle). Both the half-wave rectifier and the Kan-Lee functions correlate with cusp latitude at the 0.77 level, noticably better than Bz function used in previous work, and better than the epsilon parameter (vBT2sin4(tc/2)). We find that the best correlation is with a function whose cone angle dependence is intermediate between the pure half wave rectifier (which implies no merging for Bz>0) and the Kan-Lee function. Namely, EWAV= vBTsin4(tc/2) correlates with cusp latitude at the 0.80 level. This latter cone angle dependence has been previously suggested at various times by Wygant, by Akasofu, and by Vasyliunas. The improved result holds for subsets of the data, for both the equatorward and poleward edge of the cusp, and regardless of how the IMF is propagated. Earlier work on cross polar cap potentials and on nightside auroral luminosity also favored the EWAV function, which in combination with our findings suggests a widely applicable result. Dayside merging is apparently not purely component driven, as the half-wave rectifier formula implies, yet also shuts down for increasingly northward IMF more rapidly than the Kan-Lee electric field implies.

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