Three-Dimensional MHD Simulation of Current Sheet Evolution During the Growth Phase of Magnetospheric Substorms

Details Three-Dimensional MHD Simulation of Current Sheet Evolution During the Growth Phase of Magnetospheric Substorms Three-Dimensional MHD Simulation of Current Sheet Evolution During the Growth Phase of Magnetospheric Substorms

Dec 2004

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2004agufmsm14a..05h&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2004, abstract #SM14A-05

Physics

2740 Magnetospheric Configuration And Dynamics, 2744 Magnetotail, 2753 Numerical Modeling, 2760 Plasma Convection, 2788 Storms And Substorms

Scientific paper

Current sheet thinning in the near-Earth magnetotail is an important element of growth phase dynamics since it determines the conditions for substorm onset. The growth phase is initiated by the erosion of closed dayside magnetic flux. This flux is replenished by convection of closed magnetic flux from the near-Earth tail region to the dayside. However, this process of magnetic flux replenishment is subject to the entropy and mass conservation constraints imposed on the slow quasi-static convection of magnetic flux tubes from the mid- and far-tail regions, first identified by Erickson and Wolf (1980). We examine whether the depletion of flux from a finite reservoir in the near-Earth tail region leads to the observed current sheet thinning. This hypothesis is tested using a self-consistent three-dimensional MHD code which is coupled to a semi-empirical magnetic field model. The resulting system was relaxed to an equilibrium state using a modification of a `ballistic relaxation' method. We discuss the structure of the equilibrium near-Earth magnetotail. A plasma outflow is prescribed in the near-Earth magnetotail to model the depletion of the `flux reservoir' described above. The resulting evolution of the current sheet is discussed.

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