Plasma Sheet Changes Caused by Sudden Enhancements of the Solar Wind Pressure

Details Plasma Sheet Changes Caused by Sudden Enhancements of the Solar Wind Pressure Plasma Sheet Changes Caused by Sudden Enhancements of the Solar Wind Pressure

Dec 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009agufmsm52a..05m&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2009, abstract #SM52A-05

Physics

[2740] Magnetospheric Physics / Magnetospheric Configuration And Dynamics, [2764] Magnetospheric Physics / Plasma Sheet, [2784] Magnetospheric Physics / Solar Wind/Magnetosphere Interactions, [2790] Magnetospheric Physics / Substorms

Scientific paper

Using Geotail data, we have studied the response of the plasma sheet in the magnetotail to sudden enhancements of the solar wind pressure. We have selected three events in which there were no indications of substorm expansions around the corresponding sudden impulses (SIs) on the ground. It is shown that the ion number density and temperature, as well as the ion pressure, increase significantly due to the plasma sheet compression. The specific entropy is found to be nearly constant, suggesting that the plasma sheet compression is adiabatic. This plasma behavior is in contrast to the nonadiabatic substorm-associated processes. Hence examining the correlation between the number density and the temperature, and especially the specific entropy is critical for distinguishing between substorm-associated and SI-associated changes of the plasma sheet. The northward magnetic field in the plasma sheet also increases, or does not decrease, associated with the compression, implying that the lateral magnetotail compression suppresses the triggering of magnetic reconnection and therefore substorm expansion onsets.

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