Observations of an active thin current sheet

Details Observations of an active thin current sheet Observations of an active thin current sheet

Jul 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008jgra..11307s27r&link_type=abstract

Journal of Geophysical Research, Volume 113, Issue A7, CiteID A07S27

Physics

14

Magnetospheric Physics: Magnetotail, Magnetospheric Physics: Plasma Sheet, Magnetospheric Physics: Magnetic Reconnection (7526, 7835), Magnetospheric Physics: Substorms

Scientific paper

We analyze observations of magnetotail current sheet dynamics during a substorm between 2330 and 2400 UT on 28 August 2005 when Cluster was in the plasma sheet at [-17.2, -4.49, 0.03] R E (GSM) with the foot points near the IMAGE ground-based network. Observations from the Cluster spacecraft, ground-based magnetometers, and the IMAGE satellite showed that the substorm started in a localized region near midnight, expanding azimuthally. A thin current sheet with a thickness of less than 900 km and current density of about 30 nA/m2 was observed during 5 min around the substorm onset. The thinning of the current sheet was accompanied by tailward plasma flow at a velocity of -700 km/s and subsequent reversal to earthward flow at V x ~ 500 km/s coinciding with a B z turning from -5 to +10 nT. The analysis of magnetic and electric fields behavior and particle distributions reveals signatures of impulsive (with ~1 min timescale) activations of the thin current sheet. These observations were interpreted in the framework of transient reconnection, although the data analysis reveals serious disagreements with the classical 2.5-D X line model.

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