Physics – Plasma Physics
Scientific paper
Nov 2004
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2004jgra..10911211z&link_type=abstract
Journal of Geophysical Research, Volume 109, Issue A11, CiteID A11211
Physics
Plasma Physics
9
Magnetospheric Physics: Magnetotail, Magnetospheric Physics: Storms And Substorms, Magnetospheric Physics: Mhd Waves And Instabilities, Space Plasma Physics: Numerical Simulation Studies, Mathematical Geophysics: Modeling
Scientific paper
Two-dimensional initial value MHD simulations of the linear ideal MHD ballooning instability in the near-Earth magnetotail are presented. The configuration of the magnetotail is modeled by the analytic two-dimensional static equilibrium developed by Voigt. For an intermediate range of plasma β values (~1-100) at the equatorial plane, the Voigt configuration of the near-Earth magnetotail is shown to be unstable to ballooning modes with finite ky. (A similar intermediate range of plasma β was also obtained in the stability analyses of ballooning modes in the infinite ky limit.) Such a β dependence of the instability arises because of the stabilizing effect of plasma compression involved in the ballooning displacement of flux tubes in the high-β regime of the magnetotail. The growth rate of the finite ky ballooning instability is found to increase with the wave number ky, approaching a saturated value in the very large ky limit. The thinning of the current sheet is found to enhance the regime of unstable β as well as the growth rate of the linear ballooning instability of the near-Earth magnetotail, suggesting a possible scenario for the substorm trigger.
Bhattacharjee Anirban
Ma Zhi-Wei
Zhu Peicheng
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