Disruption of the inner edge of the tail current by earthward flow bursts

Details Disruption of the inner edge of the tail current by earthward flow bursts Disruption of the inner edge of the tail current by earthward flow bursts

May 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008agusmsm43c..04m&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Spring Meeting 2008, abstract #SM43C-04

Other

2723 Magnetic Reconnection (7526, 7835), 2740 Magnetospheric Configuration And Dynamics, 2744 Magnetotail, 2790 Substorms

Scientific paper

Turbulence in the equatorial magnetic field 8 to 12 Re behind the Earth near midnight is known to be associated with the onset of the substorm expansion phase. It has been suggested by many researchers that this turbulence is some intrinsic instability of the inner edge of the tail current sheet. They postulate that convection and current sheet thinning during the substorm growth phase produce conditions allowing instability to develop. An alternate hypothesis is that the turbulence is created by the arrival of a fast plasma flow from the midtail region produced by magnetic reconnection. We use observations from five THEMIS spacecraft during a major conjunction on February 26, 2008 to study possible causes of this turbulence. For two events that occurred during extremely weak electrojet activity we show that the turbulence begins after the arrival of a fast flow. Furthermore, Pi 2 activity at the foot points of the spacecraft is delayed relative to the arrival of the flow and the onset of turbulence. In a separate paper by members of the THEMIS team it is demonstrated that these flows are produced by X-lines Earthward of 23 Re. We support this conclusion with data from several other events observed during THEMIS conjunctions.

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