A Multi-Satellite Study of Substorm Propagating Disturbances and Comparison With a Full-Particle Simulation of Reconnection

Physics – Plasma Physics

Scientific paper

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[2744] Magnetospheric Physics / Magnetotail, [2790] Magnetospheric Physics / Substorms, [7835] Space Plasma Physics / Magnetic Reconnection

Scientific paper

We present a study of magnetotail changes during substorms and related cross-tail current disruptions/reductions. We first show that the electric field accompanying current disruptions can be measured in the tail lobe from the drift velocity of oxygen beams. A period on August 31, 2005, linked to a magnetic storm is studied here with a fleet of spacecraft including the four Cluster spacecraft and the Double Star spacecraft, TC-1 in the tail;ACE and Geotail respectively in the solar wind and magnetosheath, and four Los Alamos geostationary satellites, thus allowing to determine the direction of propagation of the substorm disturbances. Each substorm here corresponds to an energy-loading period followed by a dipolarization of the magnetic field seen from 11 to 18 RE. Plasma sheet thinning inside 12 RE, occurs during energy loading and is further enhanced at the onset of strong dissipations of magnetic energy, which precedes by several minutes particle injections at geostationary orbit. Dipolarizations coincide in the lobe with an increase of the electric field, up to several mV/m. We show that the onset of the magnetic energy conversion occurs at about ~10-11 RE and that once initiated, the global perturbation propagates both towards the Earth and towards the more distant tail. Comparisons of the measurements with recently published full-particle simulations of the reconnection process by Oka et al. [2008] indicate a good agreement between the Cluster data and the simulated magnetic lobe changes. This suggests that the lobe magnetic signatures are indicative of a tailward retreating neutral line, with its associated current disruption/reduction.

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