Flux ropes, interhemispheric conjugacy, and magnetospheric current closure

Details Flux ropes, interhemispheric conjugacy, and magnetospheric current closure Flux ropes, interhemispheric conjugacy, and magnetospheric current closure

Dec 1996

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1996jgr...10127341k&link_type=abstract

Journal of Geophysical Research, Volume 101, Issue A12, p. 27341-27350

Physics

15

Magnetospheric Physics: Magnetosphere/Ionosphere Interactions, Magnetospheric Physics: Magnetospheric Configuration And Dynamics, Magnetospheric Physics: Magnetotail, Ionosphere: Ionosphere/Magnetosphere Interactions

Scientific paper

Flux ropes are thought to be formed of twisted flux tubes that surround a unidirectional field. Such structures are often observed in the magnetotail of Earth, generally following the onset of the expansion phase of a substorm. They appear to lie in or near the neutral sheet with a dawn to dusk orientation of the central axis. Observations do not define the linkage of these structures to other parts of the magnetosphere-ionosphere system, although there is evidence that they sometimes contain ions whose source is the ionosphere. Here we consider the current that flows through flux ropes, with an emphasis on the current closure paths. We discuss how flux ropes link to the ionosphere, and what ionospheric signatures are expected, and we attempt to identify how flux rope current relates to other magnetospheric currents. Our analysis is based on Galileo flux rope observations and on the results of a magnetohydrodynamic simulation of the magnetosphere when the interplanetary magnetic field is southward but tilted in the dawn-dusk direction. We suggest that the ionospheric signatures have a predictable dawn-dusk, north-south asymmetry, and we speculate that the flux rope currents close through the substorm current wedge.

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