Physics – Plasma Physics
Scientific paper
Dec 2010
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010agufmsm43b..02o&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2010, abstract #SM43B-02
Physics
Plasma Physics
[2723] Magnetospheric Physics / Magnetic Reconnection, [2744] Magnetospheric Physics / Magnetotail, [2760] Magnetospheric Physics / Plasma Convection, [7859] Space Plasma Physics / Transport Processes
Scientific paper
In many space plasma systems such as the solar corona and the magnetosphere, non-adiabatic heating is only poorly understood. While the details of such heating are kinetic, shocks provide a fluid approximation of non-adiabatic heating. It is well established that the shocked solar wind is a major source for magnetospheric plasma. However, the entropy of the magnetosheath material is much smaller than that of the magnetosphere. Magnetospheric flux tube mass and entropy are important constraints to convection in the magnetotail. Therefore processes that can change magnetic flux tube entropy are of large importance for convection and evolution of the tail structure. This presentation examines the production of entropy during magnetic reconnection in two- and three-dimensional MHD simulations. It is demonstrated that entropy production is small to moderate if the plasma beta in the inflow region is of order unity. However, for small beta of 0.01 or less entropy production becomes an increasingly important aspect of magnetic reconnection and convection in the magnetotail and other space plasma systems.
Ma Xiao
Otto Andreas
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