Near-Earth plasma sheet boundary dynamics during substorm dipolarization
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Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
We report on the large-scale evolution of dipolarization in the near-Earth plasma sheet during an intense (AL ~ −1000 nT) substorm on August 10, 2016, when multiple spacecraft at radial distances between 4 and 15 R E were present in the night-side magnetosphere. This global dipolarization consisted of multiple short-timescale (a couple of minutes) B z disturbances detected by spacecraft distributed over 9 MLT, consistent with the large-scale substorm current wedge observed by ground-based magnetometers. The four spacecraft of the Magnetospheric Multiscale were located in the southern hemisphere plasma sheet and observed fast flow disturbances associated with this dipolarization. The high-time-resolution measurements from MMS enable us to detect the rapid motion of the field structures and flow disturbances separately. A distinct pattern of the flow and field disturbance near the plasma boundaries was found. We suggest that a vortex motion created around the localized flows resulted in another field-aligned current system at the off-equatorial side of the BBF-associated R1/R2 systems, as was predicted by the MHD simulation of a localized reconnection jet. The observations by GOES and Geotail, which were located in the opposite hemisphere and local time, support this view. We demonstrate that the processes of both Earthward flow braking and of accumulated magnetic flux evolving tailward also control the dynamics in the boundary region of the near-Earth plasma sheet.
Date Issued
2017-09-18
Online Publication Date
2017-09-18
2017-10-02T09:21:24Z
Date Acceptance
2017-08-24
ISSN
1880-5981
Publisher
SpringerOpen
Journal / Book Title
Earth, Planets and Space
Volume
69
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2017. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license,
and indicate if changes were made.
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license,
and indicate if changes were made.
Subjects
Science & Technology
Physical Sciences
Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
Geology
Substorm
Dipolarization
Plasma sheet boundary layer
Field-aligned current
RAPID FLUX TRANSPORT
AURORAL STREAMERS
CURRENTS
FRONTS
MAGNETOTAIL
TAIL
FLOW
SIMULATIONS
SATELLITE
EVOLUTION
01 Mathematical Sciences
02 Physical Sciences
04 Earth Sciences
Geochemistry & Geophysics
Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
129