Magnetic merging line and reconnection voltage versus IMF clock angle: Results from global MHD simulations

Details Magnetic merging line and reconnection voltage versus IMF clock angle: Results from global MHD simulations Magnetic merging line and reconnection voltage versus IMF clock angle: Results from global MHD simulations

Aug 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009jgra..11408220h&link_type=abstract

Journal of Geophysical Research, Volume 114, Issue A8, CiteID A08220

Physics

4

Magnetospheric Physics: Magnetosphere/Ionosphere Interactions (2431), Magnetospheric Physics: Magnetospheric Configuration And Dynamics, Magnetospheric Physics: Numerical Modeling, Magnetospheric Physics: Magnetic Reconnection (7526, 7835)

Scientific paper

This paper proposes diagnosis methods to trace the magnetic merging line and to calculate the electric potential along it for Earth's magnetospheric magnetic fields obtained by global magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations of the solar wind-magnetosphere-ionosphere (SMI) system. The points with minimum magnetic field strength along last closed magnetic field lines and properly selected closed field lines are combined to trace the whole merging line, and the radial ray integration of convectional electric field is used to calculate the electric potential on the merging line. The diagnosis methods are then applied to magnetospheric magnetic fields associated with different interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) clock angles, and a preliminary analysis is presented on the clock angle response of the geometry of the merging line and the associated reconnection voltage. The merging line is found to be similar in geometry to that of the compound field superposed by the Earth's dipole field and the IMF, whereas the reconnection voltage is approximately fitted by sin3/2($\theta$ IMF/2) for its response to the IMF clock angle $\theta$ IMF. The ionospheric transpolar potential and the voltage along the polar cap boundary show different dependence from that of the reconnection voltage, so it is not justified to take them as substitutes for the reconnection voltage. The length of the sunward merging line between the two peaks of reconnection potential shows a nonmonotonic variation in response to $\theta$ IMF, peaked at $\theta$ IMF = 90°, so it is also not justified to take electric fields along the merging line, however defined they may be, to characterize the total reconnection rate and the coupling strength between the solar wind and the magnetosphere. The reconnection nearby magnetic nulls closest to the subsolar point is found to be negligible, which gives support to the component reconnection hypothesis for dayside reconnection of quasi-steady states of the SMI system.

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