Physics
Scientific paper
Dec 2007
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007agufmsm23d..01c&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2007, abstract #SM23D-01
Physics
2728 Magnetosheath, 2731 Magnetosphere: Outer, 2753 Numerical Modeling, 2784 Solar Wind/Magnetosphere Interactions
Scientific paper
We investigate the transport of representative solar-wind ions through the Earth's magnetosheath by tracing their trajectories in an analytical model of the magnetosheath, based on the draping of plasma streamlines and magnetic field lines around a conducting magnetopause that consists of a prolate ellipsoid, extending ~ 11 RE upstream and ~ 65 RE downstream from Earth, matched to a cylinder of radius ~ 28.4 RE. The bow shock is well represented in our model by an axisymmetric paraboloid that intersects the Sun-Earth line about 26% farther upstream from the point dipole than the nose of the magnetopause does. For a uniform but arbitrarily directed interplanetary magnetic field (IMF), the magnetosheath's magnetic field can be obtained by superposition of results for special cases in which the IMF is respectively parallel to and perpendicular to the solar-wind velocity. For the case in which the IMF is parallel to the solar-wind velocity, the magnetosheath's magnetic field is derivable from Euler potentials that can be expressed analytically as a function of ellipsoidal or cylindrical coordinates that scale inversely with the sixth root of solar-wind pressure. When the IMF is perpendicular to the solar-wind velocity, we can calculate the magnetosheath flow velocity from Bernoulli's equation and compute the time delay for the magnetosheath plasma to have traveled to any point of interest from the bow shock. Points along a magnetosheath field line are points of equal time delay from an upstream field line. We compare the resulting field lines and streamlines with those obtained by Spreiter and Alksne [ Rev. Geophys., 7, 11-50, 1969] from their hydrodynamic calculation. As an application of our analytical model magnetosheath, we trace the full motion of representative solar-wind ions through it for different IMF configurations.
Chen Margaret W.
Lemon C. L.
McNab Michael C.
Schulz Michael
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