Search Publications
Transport of solar wind into Earth's magnetosphere through rolled-up Kelvin-Helmholtz vortices
Balogh, A.; Hasegawa, H.; Fujimoto, M. +5 more
Establishing the mechanisms by which the solar wind enters Earth's magnetosphere is one of the biggest goals of magnetospheric physics, as it forms the basis of space weather phenomena such as magnetic storms and aurorae. It is generally believed that magnetic reconnection is the dominant process, especially during southward solar-wind magnetic fi…
Spatial scale of high-speed flows in the plasma sheet observed by Cluster
Balogh, A.; Zhang, T. L.; Klecker, B. +9 more
Spatial gradients of high-speed flows in the midtail plasma sheet are determined using multipoint observations from the Cluster spacecraft along the ``dawn-dusk'' direction (perpendicular to the main flow and in the plane of the tail current sheet) and along the north-south direction. If we take the average or median of the spatial gradients and a…
Structure of the Magnetic Reconnection Diffusion Region from Four-Spacecraft Observations
André, M.; Khotyaintsev, Y.; Vaivads, A. +6 more
Magnetic reconnection leads to energy conversion in large volumes in space but is initiated in small diffusion regions. Because of the small sizes of the diffusion regions, their crossings by spacecraft are rare. We report four-spacecraft observations of a diffusion region encounter at the Earth's magnetopause that allow us to reliably distinguish…
Four-point discontinuity observations using Cluster magnetic field data: A statistical survey
Balogh, A.; Neubauer, F. M.; Horbury, T. +1 more
Using magnetic field data from the four Cluster spacecraft between February and May 2001, a detailed statistical analysis of interplanetary discontinuities is accomplished. In order to find the surface normals, we apply three different methods: (1) minimum variance analysis (MVA), (2) cross-product method, and (3) triangulation, the latter being t…
Selected Problems in Collisionless-Shock Physics
Krasnoselskikh, V.; Kucharek, H.; Scholer, M. +6 more
The physics of collisionless shocks is a very broad topic, which has been well studied for many decades. However, there are a number of important issues which remain unresolved. Moreover, there have been new findings, which cast doubt on well-established ideas. The purpose of this review is to address a subset of unresolved problems in collisionle…
Cluster observations of earthward flowing plasmoid in the tail
Balogh, A.; Glassmeier, K. -H.; Zhang, H. +10 more
The energetic electrons and ions embedded in Earthward-moving plasmoid structures have been observed. These plasmoids are associated with a rotational local Bz component (bi-polar) signature. Energetic electrons are found to be confined in a smaller spatial region than ions inside the plasmoid. Energetic ions and electrons seem to be a …
Orientation and propagation of current sheet oscillations
Sauvaud, J. -A.; Balogh, A.; Zhang, T. L. +6 more
Using the four-spacecraft Cluster system, we analyze rapid neutral sheet crossings near the Cluster apogee at about -18RE. In case studies of multiple oscillations of the locally quiet plasma sheet as well as in a statistical study of oscillations in dawn and dusk near-flank plasma sheet portions we typically obtain that locally these d…
A microscopic and nanoscopic view of storm-time chorus on 31 March 2001
Gurnett, D. A.; Pickett, J. S.; Santolík, O. +2 more
We investigate intense whistler-mode chorus emissions which occurred during the geomagnetic storm on 31 March 2001. We use multipoint measurements obtained by the Cluster spacecraft in the premidnight equatorial region outside the plasmasphere at a radial distance of 4 Earth radii (L = 4.0 - 4.2). Observed spatio-temporal variations of the directi…
Systematic analysis of equatorial noise below the lower hybrid frequency
Santolík, O.; Cornilleau-Wehrlin, N.; Macúšová, E. +3 more
Available from http://www.copernicus.org/site/EGU/annales/22/7/2587.htm?FrameEngine=false;
Isolated electrostatic structures observed throughout the Cluster orbit: relationship to magnetic field strength
Balogh, A.; Santolík, O.; Chen, L. +4 more
Available from http://www.copernicus.org/site/EGU/annales/22/7/2515.htm?FrameEngine=false;