Observations and Simulations of Variability in the Plasma Sheet Boundary Layer

Details Observations and Simulations of Variability in the Plasma Sheet Boundary Layer Observations and Simulations of Variability in the Plasma Sheet Boundary Layer

Dec 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006agufmsm53a1431a&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2006, abstract #SM53A-1431

Other

2744 Magnetotail, 2748 Magnetotail Boundary Layers, 2753 Numerical Modeling, 2760 Plasma Convection (2463), 2764 Plasma Sheet

Scientific paper

The plasma sheet boundary layer (PSBL), separating the central plasma sheet (CPS) from the magnetotail lobes, is a dynamic region typically characterized by high-speed field-aligned ion beams. These beams, formed in the CPS near the reconnection region, frequently have marked velocity dispersion with the highest speed beams nearest the tail lobes. Often counter-streaming ion beams are observed closer to the CPS. Despite years of satellite observations, it is not yet established whether the PSBL and especially the ion beams within this region are always present, or only occur under special conditions. Recent observations from the Cluster and Double Star spacecraft have in fact shown that the PSBL can be a region with the expected ion beams, and can, at times, contain fine-scale sub-structures called beamlets. At other times, the transition from the CPS to the lobes is very abrupt in the observations, suggesting that the PSBL is missing. We have used Large Scale Kinetic (LSK) simulations in which we calculate the trajectories of millions of ions in the electric and magnetic fields from global magnetohydrodynamic simulations to study the observed PSBL variability with emphasis on its causes. We will present simulations of an actual PSBL encounter by the Cluster and Double Star spacecraft in which the MHD model was driven by solar wind observations and show that the PSBL has a very complex and time dependent nature. The importance of global processes and local kinetic processes in determining these complex PSBL structures also will be discussed

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