Physics
Scientific paper
Dec 2007
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007agufmsm54a..06k&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2007, abstract #SM54A-06
Physics
2723 Magnetic Reconnection (7526, 7835), 2744 Magnetotail, 2753 Numerical Modeling, 2764 Plasma Sheet
Scientific paper
Substorms, regardless of how they are triggered, lead to global relaxations of the magnetotail as excess magnetic flux and energy are released both earthward and tailward through reconnection in the plasma sheet. Throughout all substorm phases, in particular during the expansion phase, reconnection remains intermittent, impulsive, spatially localized, and distributed over a significant portion of the plasma sheet. The plasma sheet is turbulent. The turbulence is strong; it may be best characterized as eddy turbulence that is driven by localized fast flows acting as jets in the plasma sheet. The turbulence has been studied extensively; its existence, many of its scaling properties, and its direct relationship to the localized fast flows has been well established. In the magnetotail, substorms are organized global events. Nevertheless, reconnection in the magnetotail, a critical element in the substorm evolution, remains sporadic and embedded in a turbulent plasma sheet whose turbulence is largely generated by the reconnection and, likely, whose turbulence plays a role in triggering the reconnection. What is the relationship between these interior stochastic multiscale phenomena and the organized global substorm? We are investigating this question using a 3-D driven reconnection model. The model is based on the full MHD system with hysteretic-thresholded current-driven resistivity added to include some effects of kinetic phenomena that are beyond the MHD approximation. We will show that under continuous driving (1) the model evolves into a loading-unloading cycle reminiscent of the substorm loading-unloading cycle, (2) that unloading is supported by multiple intermittent localized reconnection sites in the simulation volume, and (3) that reconnection in the model drives intermittent turbulence with characteristics similar to those observed in the plasma sheet.
Klimas Alex
Uritsky Vadim
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