Physics
Scientific paper
Dec 2007
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007agufmsm12b..01c&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2007, abstract #SM12B-01
Physics
2721 Field-Aligned Currents And Current Systems (2409), 2723 Magnetic Reconnection (7526, 7835), 2744 Magnetotail, 2764 Plasma Sheet
Scientific paper
Magnetospheric convection electric fields and plasma stresses are transmitted to the ionosphere by Alfvén wave electric fields and field-aligned currents (FACs). The closure of the FACs by ionospheric Hall and Pedersen currents drives the ionospheric convection system. However, the ionospheric system does not necessarily mesh smoothly with the magnetospheric drivers, and the magnetosphere must respond by altering its convection and plasma stress configuration, thereby creating self-consistent closure paths for the complete coupled system of currents and electric potentials. Three-dimensional particle-in-cell plasma kinetic simulations are used to determine the plasma sheet response to various current systems imposed as boundary conditions at the near-Earth boundary. These systems consist of separate downward and upward tubes of FAC and a substorm current wedge configuration. The results demonstrate that the creation of closure paths for ionospheric FACs can result in large configuration changes within the near-Earth plasma sheet. The plasma sheet is forced to establish polarization electric fields that locally increase the cross-tail current by producing a duskward Hall electron current; this results in the formation of thin (in z), spatially localized (in y) electron-dominated Hall current sheets. The observed complex magnetic field configuration with opposite polarity Bz fields in close proximity separated by electron scale thin current sheets is reminiscent of the turbulent magnetic fields that are observed within the near-Earth current disruption region at substorm breakup [ Lui et al., 1988, 1992].
Coroniti Ferdinan V.
Pritchett Philip L.
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