Field-line mapping of the near-Earth plasma sheet based on the plasma pressure information obtained by GEOTAIL

Details Field-line mapping of the near-Earth plasma sheet based on the plasma pressure information obtained by GEOTAIL Field-line mapping of the near-Earth plasma sheet based on the plasma pressure information obtained by GEOTAIL

Dec 2004

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2004agufmsm14a..06m&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2004, abstract #SM14A-06

Physics

2431 Ionosphere/Magnetosphere Interactions (2736), 2736 Magnetosphere/Ionosphere Interactions, 2740 Magnetospheric Configuration And Dynamics, 2744 Magnetotail, 2764 Plasma Sheet

Scientific paper

The magnetic field line mapping of the magnetotail is a very important issue since physical interpretaion of any correlatinal studies between ionospheric phenomena (e.g. auroral break up) and magnetospheric phenomena (e.g. fast plasma flows) is directly affected by the field-line mapping. We here present a unique method to trace field lines from plasma measurements in the magnetotail. The plasma pressure balance equation tells us that the plasma pressure should be constant along the field lines since the JxB force counterbalancing the pressure gradient is perpendicular to the magnetic field. Therefore the contour lines of constant plasma pressure in the x-z plane of the magnetotail represent the magentic field lines themselves. Based on this idea, we have analyzed the average plasma pressure distribution in the magnetotail using 10 years data from GEOTAIL, for various conditions of solar wind/IMF parameters including IMF Bz polarity. The result indicates a quantitative difference in the latitude-eauatorial distance relationship, i.e., in the degree of stretching of field lines for different polarities of IMF. We emphasize that this is the first time that the large-scale configuration of magnetic field lines is deduced without introducing any model parameters. Our method is also unique in that it is based on plasma data only. We will comment on the consistency/inconsistency of our result with the Tyganenko field models.

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