Gradients of solar protons in the high-latitude magnetotail and the magnetospheric electric field

Details Gradients of solar protons in the high-latitude magnetotail and the magnetospheric electric field Gradients of solar protons in the high-latitude magnetotail and the magnetospheric electric field

Feb 1976

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1976jgr....81..562p&link_type=abstract

Journal of Geophysical Research, vol. 81, Feb. 1, 1976, p.562-568. DOD-ERDA-sponsored research.

Physics

Electric Fields, Geomagnetic Tail, Magnetospheric Proton Density, Satellite Observation, Solar Protons, Anisotropy, Convective Flow, Lines Of Force, Magnetospheric Instability, Proton Flux Density, Proton Precipitation, Solar Wind, Vela Satellites

Scientific paper

This paper reports direct observations of the drift of energetic protons from the magnetotail surface through the tail lobes toward the plasma sheet and provides measurements of the associated electric field. The three-dimensional measurements of the gradients in proton flux were made with energetic-particle detectors on board the Vela 5 and 6 satellites. One proton event is analyzed in detail, and the measurements are shown to suggest that the gradients in proton flux are perpendicular to the magnetic field and are convected past the satellites toward the midplane of the tail. The electric field is found to be between 0.5 and 1.3 mV/m, which would drive convection at 30 to 80 km/sec in a typical magneto tail magnetic field of about 15 gammas. It is concluded that the observations are consistent with an open model of the magnetosphere in which the magnetic-field lines from the earth's polar regions extend into the solar wind and are convected into the magnetosphere, along with the solar proton fluxes associated with them, as they are pulled downstream by the solar wind.

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