Active experiments in space, laboratory experiments and numerical simulation.

Plasma Acceleration in the Magnetotail as an Origin of the Electric Field Generation during a Substorm.

“…The equi-potential violation of a magnetic field line can be expected in such conditions. The idea of the potential drop appearance is in a good agreement with many experimental and theoretical works (see review, Podgorny, 1982), which have demonstrated appearance of double electrical layers and/or regions of anomalous resistivity, when the electron current velocity in field-aligned currents reaches some critical value, usually (Te/mi)1/2. Here Te is the electron temperature, mi is the ion mass.…”

“…The creation of the earthward electric field in the magnetotail has been demonstrated in a laboratory simulation experiment (Minami et al, 1993). For a correct reproduction of the space phenomena in the laboratory the principle of limited simulation has been used (Podgorny, 1978). The experiments are carried out in an artificial magnetosphere, which has been created at supersonic and super-Alfvenic plasma flux (artificial solar wind) interaction with the dipole magnetic field.…”

“…For the numerical simulation of plasma flow influence on current sheet stability the 2D mode of PERESVET program has been used (Podgorny and Podgorny, 1995). The implicit finite difference scheme solves MHD equations sequentially along each coordinate.…”

“…The jet dynamic pressure pV2 is larger than B2/8-7r. The dimensionless parameters (the magnetic Reynolds number, Re,,, the ratio of plasma pressure to magnetic one, 3, the Alfvenic Mach number, MA) are chosen according to the principal of limited simulation (Podgorny, 1978):…”

Overview of APEX Project Results

“…Since 1960s, tens of active charged particle beam experiments (e.g., Winckler, 1980;Grandal, 1982;Podgorny, 1982;Neubert and Banks, 1992;Raitt, 1995), in space have been performed, the motivations behind these experiments ranging from investigations of charge neutralization processes in the plasma medium near the beam source to probing conditions on remote sections of geomagnetic field lines (Winckler, 1980). A lot of interesting experimental results was obtained aboard the U.S. space shuttles (e.g., Burch, 1986), few other satellites were devoted to active experiments in space plasma at altitudes starting in ionosphere to solar wind.…”