Primary sources of large-scale Birkeland currents

Details Primary sources of large-scale Birkeland currents Primary sources of large-scale Birkeland currents

Nov 1979

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1979ssrv...24..347s&link_type=abstract

Space Science Reviews, vol. 24, Nov. 1979, p. 347-366.

Physics

22

Birkeland Currents, Convection Currents, Earth Magnetosphere, Ionospheric Currents, Plasma-Electromagnetic Interaction, Ring Currents, Solar Wind, Atmospheric Electricity, Atmospheric Models, Auroral Electrojets, Geomagnetic Tail, Plasma Density, Plasma Layers, Plasma Pressure

Scientific paper

The paper reviews generation mechanisms of Birkeland currents in the magnetosphere and the ionosphere. A model for driving mechanism is presented which is unified by the solar wind-magnetosphere interaction that allows the coexistence of steady viscous interaction and unsteady magnetic reconnection. The model predicts that (1) the Region 1 Birkeland currents would be fed by vorticity-induced space charges at the core of two-cell magnetospheric convection resulting from viscous interaction between the solar wind and the magnetospheric plasma; (2) the Region 2 Birkeland currents would originate from regions of plasma pressure inhomogeneities in the magnetosphere caused by coupling between the two-cell magnetospheric convection and the hot ring current; and (3) the nightside Birkeland currents connected to a part of the westward auroral electrojet in the Harang discontinuity sector may be a diversion of the dusk-to-dawn tail current resulting from localized magnetic reconnection in the magnetotail plasma sheet where plasma density and pressure are reduced.

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