Penetration of solar wind plasma elements into the magnetosphere

Details Penetration of solar wind plasma elements into the magnetosphere Penetration of solar wind plasma elements into the magnetosphere

Dec 1976

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1976stin...7727055l&link_type=abstract

Presented at the 3d European Geophys. Soc. Meeting, Symp. on Magnetopause Regions, Amsterdam, 7-10 Sep. 1976

Physics

Magnetopause, Plasma Interactions, Birkeland Currents, Geomagnetic Tail, High Temperature Plasmas, Indentation, Lines Of Force, Magnetic Flux, Magnetosheath, Solar Wind

Scientific paper

Considering that the solar wind is unsteady and non-uniform, it is suggested that field aligned plasma elements dent the magnetopause surface. This indentation makes the magnetopause boundary convex, and therefore locally unstable with respect to flute instabilities. The intruding element is braked and stopped within 1 or 2 earth radii from the magnetopause. Its excess convection kinetic energy is dissipated in the lower polar cusp ionosphere in time lapses of 50 to 500 seconds depending on the value of integrated Pedersen conductivity. Once the plasma element has been engulfed, keeping its identity, the warm plasma content is dissipated by precipitation and by drifting. The magnetosheath particles with large pitch angles are mirrored, and feed the plasma mantle flow. Several consequences of this penetration mechanism are pointed out: ionospheric heating beneath the polar cusp; Birkeland currents on the eastward and westward edges of the plasma element; diamagnetic field fluctuations within 1-2 RE from the magnetopause (multiple magnetopause crossings); oscillation of the magnetopause surface after a new element has penetrated; exit of energetic particles out of the magnetosphere, and entry of energetic solar wind particles into the magnetosphere along the magnetic field lines of the intruding element; magnetic flux is substracted from the dayside magnetosphere and added to the geomagnetic tail when the magnetic field of the element has a southward component.

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