Pressure Conversion in the Solar Wind-Magnetosphere Interaction

Details Pressure Conversion in the Solar Wind-Magnetosphere Interaction Pressure Conversion in the Solar Wind-Magnetosphere Interaction

Dec 2010

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010agufmsm51b1779s&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2010, abstract #SM51B-1779

Physics

[2723] Magnetospheric Physics / Magnetic Reconnection, [2724] Magnetospheric Physics / Magnetopause And Boundary Layers, [2784] Magnetospheric Physics / Solar Wind/Magnetosphere Interactions

Scientific paper

The solar wind dynamic pressure is reduced in front of the magnetopause because of a diversion the solar wind flow around the Earth's magnetosphere. The reduced dynamic pressure is then converted into static pressure, thermal plus magnetic, that balances with the magnetic pressure of the outer magnetosphere. With magnetopause crossings identified from the THEMIS data, the total static pressure just outside the magnetopause is directly estimated from plasma and magnetic field parameters averaged over a period of 30 sec just outside the magnetopause. Solar wind data from the OMNI web are used to obtain corresponding solar wind conditions for the magnetopause crossings. The reduction factor K for each crossing is defined as a ratio of the total static pressure just outside the magnetopause to the upstream solar wind dynamic pressure. Previous studies on pressure balance at the magnetopause usually assumed that the factor K was a constant. In this study, it is found that the factor K depends upon the north-south component of interplanetary magnetic field (IMF). The factor K for southward IMF is even much larger than 0.881, a value estimated from theory. The large K for southward IMF is likely attributed to magnetic reconnection that adds extra static pressure to just outside the magnetopause. As a result, the magnetopause moves inward.

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