Substorm onset viewed by a two-dimensional, global-scale hybrid code

Details Substorm onset viewed by a two-dimensional, global-scale hybrid code Substorm onset viewed by a two-dimensional, global-scale hybrid code

May 2001

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001jastp..63..683s&link_type=abstract

Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, Volume 63, Issue 7, p. 683-704.

Physics

6

Scientific paper

A two-dimensional hybrid code is used to simulate processes related to the onset of the substorm expansive phase that take place in the midnight meridian plane of the magnetosphere. The simulation domain extends from the Earth's ionosphere to 35 Earth radii in the antisunward direction and to 11 Earth radii along the polar axes. Simulation runs were made both with and without a driving dawn-to-dusk electric field imposed at the boundaries. In the driven cases momentum exchange between the plasma being accelerated earthward in the neutral sheet and the magnetic field results in a stretching of the magnetic field lines and thinning of the plasma sheet. In the undriven cases, the induction electric field from the collapsing tail field also accelerates plasma sheet plasma earthward. In both cases a pair of field-aligned currents develops connecting the inner edge of the plasma sheet to the auroral ionosphere, with the downward current equatorward of the upward current. The breaking of the inward plasma flow drives these currents. Next follows the apparent dipolarization. ``Dipolarization'' is carried outward by plasma rebounding off the dipole field. Ion-ion two streaming instabilities are excited behind the expanding dipolarization front. The effect of these instabilities is propagated earthward along magnetic field lines by shear Alfvén waves. These are seen as multiple field-aligned current filaments above the auroral ionosphere. We take the upward field-aligned current filaments as proxies for auroral arcs. Results of the simulations indicate substorm effects to be a consequence of the near-Earth breaking fast earthward flows, which develop in the plasma sheet.

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