Physics – Plasma Physics
Scientific paper
Dec 2011
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011agufmsm51d..07l&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2011, abstract #SM51D-07
Physics
Plasma Physics
[2753] Magnetospheric Physics / Numerical Modeling, [7836] Space Plasma Physics / Mhd Waves And Instabilities
Scientific paper
Recent advances in numerical modeling of ionospheric oxygen in the magnetosphere have revealed a number of global effects. The presence of the heavy ion component was shown to influence substorm dynamics, plasma sheet pressure and composition, the rate and location of the night side reconnection. One of the effects that has long been argued to take place is the influence of oxygen plasma component on the development of magnetopause boundary waves due to Kelvin-Helmholtz (KH) instability. The argument is that the heavier ions increase the Alfven speed inside the magnetosphere thereby lowering the instability threshold. This argument is based on the linear stability analysis derived for a tangential discontinuity between two incompressible plasmas streaming past each other. However, our previously reported results using the multi-fluid Lyon-Fedder-Mobarry (MFLFM) model (Merkin, 2011) suggested that the presence of oxygen ions actually can stabilize the growth of KH waves in the simulation. In the present work we build upon these earlier results by developing a high-resolution version of the MFLFM model. With this new development we are able to better resolve the Low-Latitude Boundary Layer (LLBL) which appears to play an important role in the development of KH waves, not described by the aforementioned linear analysis. We study the dependence of KH waves on the density and temperature of oxygen ions in the magnetosphere, their effects on the properties of the LLBL, including its width and the degree to which it is populated by oxygen. To explore the wave activity in a more quantitative fashion, we analyze the spectral characteristics of the KH waves, including the spatial distribution and temporal evolution of the wave power. The ultimate question that we seek to answer is whether the ionospheric oxygen stabilizes or makes more intense the magnetopause boundary wave activity and under what conditions this occurs.
Lyon John
Merkin V. G.
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