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Thin Current Sheets in the Magnetotail Observed by Cluster
Nakamura, R.; Baumjohann, W.; Asano, Y. +1 more
The dynamics of the current sheet is one of the most essential elements in magnetotail physics. Particularly, thin current sheets, which we define here as those with a thickness of less than several ion inertia lengths, are known to play an important role in the energy conversion process in the magnetotail. With its capability of multi-point obser…
Bursty Bulk Flow Driven Turbulence in the Earth's Plasma Sheet
Nakamura, R.; Baumjohann, W.; Volwerk, M. +2 more
During the last several years significant progress has been made in understanding MHD turbulence in the Earth’s plasma sheet. Due to the statistically transitory properties of fluctuations, finite size and boundary effects, however, issues of fundamental importance remain unresolved. Here we concentrate on such intrinsic features of plasma sheet t…
Location of Magnetic Reconnection in the Magnetotail
Nagai, Tsugunobu
It is a crucial issue to know where magnetic reconnection takes place in the near-Earth magnetotail for substorm onsets. It is found on the basis of Geotail observations that the factor that controls the magnetic reconnection site in the magnetotail is the solar wind energy input. Magnetic reconnection forms close to (far from) the Earth in the ma…
Microphysics of Magnetic Reconnection
Retinò, Alessandro; Vaivads, Andris; André, Mats
Magnetic reconnection is a universal phenomenon where energy is efficiently converted from the magnetic field to charged particles as a result of global magnetic topology changes during which earlier separated plasma regions become magnetically connected. While the reconnection affects large volumes in space most of the topology changes and of the…
Shocks: Commonalities in Solar-Terrestrial Chains
Schwartz, Steven J.
Shocks are found throughout the heliosphere, wherever supersonic (or super-magnetosonic) flows encounter obstacles or other, slowly moving, media. Although some of the physical parameters are in different regimes, all shocks heat and decelerate the media incident upon them. Most shocks must propagate in a collisionless plasma, thereby adding impor…
Substorms and Their Solar Wind Causes
Nakamura, Rumi
Consequences of the solar wind input observed as large scale magnetotail dynamics during substorms are reviewed, highlighting results from statistical studies as well as global magnetosphere/ionosphere observations. Among the different solar wind input parameters, the most essential one to initiate reconnection relatively close to the Earth is a s…
Review of Ionospheric Effects of Solar Wind Magnetosphere Coupling in the Context of the Expanding Contracting Polar Cap Boundary Model
Wild, J. A.; Lester, M.; Milan, S. E. +1 more
This paper reviews the coupling between the solar wind, magnetosphere and ionosphere. The coupling between the solar wind and Earth’s magnetosphere is controlled by the orientation of the Interplanetary Magnetic Field (IMF). When the IMF has a southward component, the coupling is strongest and the ionospheric convection pattern that is generated i…
Cross-Scale Coupling Within Rolled-Up MHD-Scale Vortices and Its Effect on Large Scale Plasma Mixing Across the Magnetospheric Boundary
Hasegawa, H.; Fujimoto, M.; Nakamura, T. K. M.
Kelvin-Helmholtz Instability (KHI) is an MHD-scale instability that grows in a velocity shear layer such as the low-latitude boundary layer of the magnetosphere. KHI is driven unstable when a velocity shear is strong enough to overcome the stabilization effect of magnetic field. When the shear is significantly strong, vortices in the nonlinear sta…