On the role of the ionosphere in substorms - Generation of field-aligned currents

Details On the role of the ionosphere in substorms - Generation of field-aligned currents On the role of the ionosphere in substorms - Generation of field-aligned currents

Jun 1978

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1978jgr....83.2574g&link_type=abstract

Journal of Geophysical Research, vol. 83, June 1, 1978, p. 2574-2578. Research supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft

Physics

6

Electric Current, Field Aligned Currents, Geomagnetic Tail, Ionospheric Conductivity, Magnetic Storms, Magnetospheric Instability, Atmospheric Models, Auroral Arcs, Current Sheets, Electric Potential, Geomagnetism, Lines Of Force, Polarization (Waves)

Scientific paper

From a theory of the substorm mechanism, it appears that substorm instability is the result of a complicated interplay between the ionosphere and the magnetosphere. Theoretical analysis of the stability properties of the magnetotail led to the suggestion that the ion-tearing instability is responsible for the magnetospheric substorm. A treatment in which electric potential fields across the field lines (which significantly alter the results), were taken into account showed that during the expansion phase such potentials may indeed arise in the plasma sheet if only the magnetosphere, but not the ionosphere, is taken into consideration. In the present paper, the interaction with the ionosphere is taken into consideration by allowing for the presence of field-aligned currents. The analysis shows that tail instability may generate field-aligned currents of the observed order of magnitude. The results are found to correlate well with the multiple-sheet structure of field-aligned currents obtained by Aubry et al. (1972) in the expansion phase after substorm onset. The total current per sheet is estimated to be of the order of 1,000,000 A.

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