Cluster Observations of Earthward Flowing Plasmoid in the Tail

Details Cluster Observations of Earthward Flowing Plasmoid in the Tail Cluster Observations of Earthward Flowing Plasmoid in the Tail

Dec 2004

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2004agufmsm31a1216z&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2004, abstract #SM31A-1216

Physics

2720 Energetic Particles, Trapped, 2744 Magnetotail, 2748 Magnetotail Boundary Layers, 2764 Plasma Sheet, 2788 Storms And Substorms

Scientific paper

The energetic electrons and ions embedded in Earthward-moving plasmoid structures have been observed. These plasmoids are associated with a rotational local Bz component (bi-polar) signature. Energetic electrons are found to be confined in a smaller spatial region than ions inside the plasmoid. Energetic ions and electrons seem to be a good indicator for the structure boundary. The fleet of Cluster spacecraft cross the plasmoid structure in a "first entry, last out" order (Note: when spacecraft cross a planar discontinuity, e.g. magnetopause, they will be in "first entry, first out" order). This documents the fact that the plasmoid has a non-planar nested structure. The large separation distance (around 1 RE) of the Cluster satellites in October 2002 is an advantage to provide constraints on the size and shape of the plasmoid structure of interest. In addition, the plasmoid (with closed field lines) should preserve the ion composition information where it is formed. The ion composition observed in the plasmoid shows significantly lower O and He than in the ambient plasma. This implies few heavy ions are involved in the reconnection process where the plasmoid is formed. Multiple flux ropes/plasmoids observation presented in this paper can be interpreted as strong evidence for multiple X-lines.

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