Ionospheric Incorporation into the Plasma Sheet

Details Ionospheric Incorporation into the Plasma Sheet Ionospheric Incorporation into the Plasma Sheet

May 2002

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2002agusmsm32b..04m&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Spring Meeting 2002, abstract #SM32B-04

Physics

2736 Magnetosphere/Ionosphere Interactions, 2740 Magnetospheric Configuration And Dynamics, 2764 Plasma Sheet

Scientific paper

We report on the flow of ionospheric plasmas into the plasma sheet and its incorporation into the hot plasmas responsible for supporting the magnetotail. Plasma and field observations are used to set up a particle simulation of the neutral sheet, to investigate the degree to which the observed plasma streams account for the observed hot plasma near the neutral sheet. The observations originate from the transitional region between 7-10 earth radii within a few hours of local midnight. Lobe streams of polar ionospheric outflows routinely flow tailward in both hemispheres. These form counterstreaming flows on closed flux tubes in the quiet plasma sheet, in which the neutral sheet is thick and the field reversal is gradual (few Re scale). Auroral outflows (more energetic conics and beams) are observed to be embedded within the lobe streams, usually outside the region where they become counterstreaming. When the neutral sheet thins dramatically (0.2 Re scale) as it does during active periods, the counterstreaming flows turn into hot isotropic plasmas in the immediate vicinity of the neutral sheet. When the neutral sheet is disturbed by one or more dipolarization events, associated with substorms, the neutral sheet thins and then thickens rapidly, such that the spacecraft moves across the plasma sheet boundary layer structures out of and back into the plasma sheet. Thus, both quiescent and dynamic simulation scenarios will be required.

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