Physics
Scientific paper
Dec 2009
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009agufmsm22a..06k&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2009, abstract #SM22A-06
Physics
[2736] Magnetospheric Physics / Magnetosphere/Ionosphere Interactions, [2744] Magnetospheric Physics / Magnetotail, [2764] Magnetospheric Physics / Plasma Sheet, [2788] Magnetospheric Physics / Magnetic Storms And Substorms
Scientific paper
The standard model of the formation of the ring current during a geomagnetic storm is that enhanced, time dependent convection due to an extended time period of strongly southward interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) brings the plasma sheet plasma into the inner magnetosphere, where it becomes trapped on closed drift paths. If this is the case, the ring current composition should reflect the plasma sheet composition. The composition of the ring current plasma indicates that a large fraction must come from the ionosphere. Thus, there must also be a large ionospheric component in the plasma sheet during storms. There are two pathways for the ionospheric ions to reach the plasma sheet. One significant source is the “cleft ion fountain”. These ions are heated and accelerated in the cusp/cleft region, and then are convected across the polar cap as they move up the field line. The resulting velocity filter effect separates these ions in both energy and mass, such that higher energy and lighter ions travel further down the tail than lower energy and heavier ions. Because of this filtering effect, when these ions are observed over the polar cap and in the lobe at one particular location, they appear to be tailward streaming mono-energetic “beams”. The second pathway for ions is from the nightside aurora, where ions have direct access to the near-earth plasma sheet. In this paper we will review the observational evidence for how the plasma sheet composition changes during storms, and how these changes relate to increased input from the cusp and nightside auroral sources.
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