Other
Scientific paper
May 2001
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001agusm..sm61b02o&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Spring Meeting 2001, abstract #SM61B-02
Other
2708 Current Systems (2409), 2744 Magnetotail, 2764 Plasma Sheet, 2788 Storms And Substorms
Scientific paper
The present study observationally addresses the role of the fast plasma sheet flow in the substorm initiation. A currently popular model of the substorm initiation is based on the idea that the fast earthward flow, which is caused by the near-Earth reconnection, is decelerated as it approaches the Earth. This flow deceleration is considered to cause the reduction of the tail current intensity there, triggering substorm. Since the earthward flow is eventually decelerated in ordinary magnetic configurations with magnetic field strength increasing toward the Earth, the substorm initiation may be regarded as an inevitable effect of the fast earthward flow and therefore of the near-Earth reconnection. However, we recently found that fast plasma flows are not always followed by substorm activity. Some of them actually take place at geomagnetically quiet time, even though the associated flux transfer is so large that it can be explained only in terms of a full development of the near-Earth reconnection (lobe reconnection). The result strongly suggests that the generation of the earthward flow alone is not sufficient for causing substorm. In other words, there must be an additional or different factor that controls the trigger/development of substorm. In the present paper we will address such a factor by examining coordinated satellite and ground observations made when the fast plasma flow was observed in the near-Earth tail. A focus will be placed on an event that took place on August 14, 1996. In this event the Geotail satellite was located in the plasma sheet about 3.5 Re tailward of the GOES 8 satellite in the premidnight sector and observed a fast (~400 km/s) earthward convection flow along with an increase Bz. At geosynchronous altitude, however, the local magnetic field continued to be stretched and did not dipolarize until more than 15 min after the Geotail onset of the fast flow.
Kawano Hideaki
Ohtani Shin
Yamaguchi Ryuta
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