No abstract

Observations from the Charge Composition Explorerin 1985 and 1986 revealed fifteen current disruption events in which the magnetic field fluctuations were large and their onsets coincided well with ground onsets of substorm expansion or intensification. These events are of short durations locally (∼1–5 min). They are mostly confined to within ∼0.5 RE of the neutral sheet and 1 hour local time from the magnetic midnight. Over the disruption interval, the local magnetic field can change by as much as a factor of ∼7. In general, the stronger the current buildup and the closer to the neutral sheet, the larger the resultant field change. There is also a tendency for a larger subsequent enhancement in the AE index with a stronger current buildup prior to current disruption. For events with good pitch angle coverage and extended observation in the neutral sheet region we find that the particle pressure increases toward the disruption onset and decreases afterward. Just prior to disruption, either the total particle pressure is isotropic, or the perpendicular component (P⊥) dominates the parallel comment (P∥), the plasma beta is seen to be as high as ∼70, and the observed plasma pressure gradient at the neutral sheet is large along the tail axis. The deduced local current density associated with pressure gradient is ∼27–80 nA/m² and is ∼85–105 mA/m when integrated over the sheet thickness. We infer from these results that just prior to the onset of current disruption, (1) an extremely thin current sheet requiring P∥ > P⊥ for stress balance does not develop at these distances, (2) the thermal ion orbits are in the chaotic or Speiser regime while the thermal electrons are in the adiabatic regime and, in one case, exhibit peaked fluxes perpendicular to the magnetic field, thus implying no electron orbit chaotization to possibly initiate ion tearing instability, and (3) the neutral sheet is in the unstable regime specified by the cross‐field current instability. Subsequent to the disruption onset, enhancement of magnetic noise over a broad frequency range, magnetic field aligned counterstreaming electron beams, ion energization perpendicular to the magnetic field, and current reduction in the amount similar to that of current buildup during the growth phase are observed. These features seem to be compatible with the predicted development of the cross‐field current instability.

[1] When the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) is southward, most of the ionospheric potential is generated by merging between the IMF and the magnetospheric field. Typically, the ionospheric potential responds linearly to the magnitude of the southward IMF. However, when the IMF magnitude is large, the ionospheric potential saturates and it becomes relatively insensitive to further increases in the IMF magnitude. We present evidence from simulations that under purely southward IMF conditions, the value of the portion of the potential due to reconnection is controlled by the divergence of the magnetosheath flow, which determines the geoeffective length in the solar wind. Typically, the gradient in the plasma pressure controls the magnetosheath flow, so as the southward IMF increases in magnitude, the change in the magnetosheath force balance is negligible, the geoeffective length in the solar wind does not change, and the reconnection potential increases linearly with the magnitude of the IMF. However, when the IMF magnitude increases to the point where J × B becomes the dominant force in the magnetosheath, further increases in IMF magnitude do affect the overall force balance, diverting more flow away from the merging line, decreasing the geoeffective length, and limiting the global merging rate. Thus magnetosheath force balance can be seen as a single organizing factor that regulates the geoeffective length in the solar wind for the entire range of solar wind parameters.

No abstract

This paper documents a series of brief, strong (Δp/p = 1), dynamic pressure oscillations that occurred in the region upstream of the Earth's bow shock during a period of radial interplanetary magnetic field (IMF). The analyzed set of oscillations, which may be either intrinsic solar wind or bow shock‐related phenomena, recur approximately every 8–10 min, and their magnetic field signatures occur nearly simultaneously over great distances transverse to the Earth‐Sun line. The pressure oscillations appear to drive tailward‐moving magnetopause surface wavelets. In turn, the surface wavelets can be identified as hydromagnetic waves with strong compressional components in the outer magnetosphere and as quasi‐periodic variations in electron precipitation and high‐latitude ground pulsations. We use observations by spacecraft in the outer dayside magnetosphere to predict geosynchronous and subsolar magnetic field strengths, the location of the subsolar magnetopause, the solar wind dynamic pressure, and variations in the energetic magnetospheric ion flux.

The relationships between solar wind proton temperature and vdocity and between temperature and momentum flux density at 1 AU are examined using National Space Science Data Center IMP 8 solar wind data obtained from late 1984 to early 1985. These relationships are compared with similar ones obtained from a variety of solar wind data spanning 14 years, from 1966 to 1980. It is found that these relationships, particularly the one between temperature and velocity, are very stable over the solar cycles from which these data were drawn. This suggests that the basic physical processes which accelerate and heat the solar wind have remained unchanged for the last 20 years. Over this same period, the energy, momentum, and mass fluxes produced by the Sun to generate the solar wind varied by about 60ø7o. A qualitative explanation of these results is given in the context of a model for solar wind generation that includes significant postsonic momentum and energy deposition and assumes that solar wind protons are heated by magnetohydrodynamic waves of solar origin. 11,189

We present a magnetic field drift shell‐splitting model for the unusual butterfly and head‐and‐shoulder energetic (E > 25 keV) particle pitch angle distributions (PADs) which appear deep within the dayside magnetosphere during the course of storms and substorms. Drift shell splitting separates the high and low pitch angle particles in nightside injections as they move to the dayside magnetosphere, so that the higher pitch angle particles move radially away from Earth. Consequently, butterfly PADs with a surplus of low pitch angle particles form on the inner edge of the injection, but head‐and‐shoulder PADs with a surplus of high pitch angle particles form on the outer edge. A similar process removes high pitch angle particles from the inner dayside magnetosphere during storms, leaving the remaining lower pitch angle particles to form butterfly PADs on the inner edge of the ring current. A detailed case and statistical study of CCE/MEPA observations, as well as a review of previous work, shows most examples of unusual PADs to be consistent with the model.

On 1 Jun 1985 the AMPTE/CCE spacecraft (at a geocentric distance of ∼8.8 RE at the midnight neutral sheet region) observed a dispersionless energetic particle injection and an increase in magnetic field magnitude, which are features commonly attributed to disruption of the near‐earth cross‐tail current sheet during substorm expansion onsets. An analysis based on high time‐resolution measurements from the magnetometer and the energetic particle detector indicates that the current sheet disruption region exhibited localized (< 1 RE) and transient (< 1 min) particle intensity enhancements, accompanied by complex magnetic field changes with occasional development of a southward magnetic field component. Similar features are seen in other current disruption/diversion events observed by the CCE. Our analysis suggests that the current disruption region is quite turbulent, similar to laboratory experiments on current sheet disruption, with signatures unlike those expected from an X‐type neutral line configuration. No clear indication of periodicity in any magnetic field parameter is discernible for this current disruption event.