Ion Dynamics of the Inner Tail and Reconnection Signatures

Details Ion Dynamics of the Inner Tail and Reconnection Signatures Ion Dynamics of the Inner Tail and Reconnection Signatures

Dec 2003

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2003agufmsm31e..03k&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2003, abstract #SM31E-03

Physics

2716 Energetic Particles, Precipitating, 2736 Magnetosphere/Ionosphere Interactions, 2744 Magnetotail, 2748 Magnetotail Boundary Layers, 2788 Storms And Substorms

Scientific paper

During active times, the magnetotail current layer thins to below the thermal ion gyro radius, over a large distance from just past the transition to dipolar field lines to beyond 20RE. These scales and the simultaneous presence of cold lobe ions, current-carrying hot central plasmasheet ions, as well as highly energized ions create an environment rich in ion-kinetic effects that often dominate the dynamics of the tail. While crucial, ion-kinetic physics is not contained in local or global fluid (MHD) descriptions. It is argued that the ions also play a larger role than previously assumed in communicating perturbations earthward. Our 3-D hybrid simulations (kinetic ions, electron fluid) have demonstrated that earthward transport of energetic, essentially unmagnetized ions is fast and efficient, and can be associated with a large heat flux that initially is located close to the neutral sheet. Both the energetic ions and parallel currents can arrive long before the dipolarization front on what corresponds to relatively low-latitude field lines. Understanding the characteristics of these ions has recently become of greater interest, considering improved methods of monitoring and imaging near-Earth and precipitating energetic ions. However, in previous studies we used a traditional equilibrium, which does not provide a good description of the inner tail. Using techniques that generate numerical equilibria, we have now improved our model by including the transition to the dipolar region. We discuss the stability of these equilibria and present results that show the passive and active impact of the near-Earth region on reconnection signatures.

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