Journal article
Plasma sheet electromagnetic power generation and its dissipation along auroral field lines
Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, Vol.107(A8), pp.SMP 14-1-SMP 14-20
08/2002
DOI: 10.1029/2001JA900136
Abstract
During a fortuitous meridional conjunction of Polar and Geotail at the nightside magnetosphere throughout the course of a geomagnetic substorm, measurements of Poynting flux indicate that most of the electromagnetic energy flux density that is radiated in the form of waves at the location of Geotail at ∼18 RE is dissipated before it reaches Polar at ∼5 RE, i.e., above the auroral acceleration region. While the Poynting flux measured at Polar (and to a greater extent at Geotail) is more than sufficient to account for particle acceleration below the satellite, it still represents a small portion of the earthward directed particle energy flux density measured at Geotail. If even a small portion of the bursty bulk flow energy couples to Alfven waves, it would be energetically sufficient to account for the expected auroral energy deposition during substorms. Power dissipation via kinetic Alfven waves along auroral field lines represents a viable mechanism by which localized reconnection flows can slow down. This may explain why fast earthward flows reported at midtail (>30 RE) distances can exist with no near‐Earth counterpart and why any putative candidates of an ionospherically reflected flow burst pulse in the tail have very small amplitudes.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Plasma sheet electromagnetic power generation and its dissipation along auroral field lines
- Creators
- V Angelopoulos - University of California, BerkeleyJ. A Chapman - University of California, BerkeleyF. S Mozer - University of California, BerkeleyJ. D Scudder - University of IowaC. T Russell - University of California, Los AngelesK Tsuruda - Institute of Space and Astronautical ScienceT Mukai - Institute of Space and Astronautical ScienceT. J Hughes - Herzberg Institute of AstrophysicsK Yumoto - Kyushu University
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, Vol.107(A8), pp.SMP 14-1-SMP 14-20
- DOI
- 10.1029/2001JA900136
- ISSN
- 0148-0227
- eISSN
- 2156-2202
- Number of pages
- 20
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 08/2002
- Academic Unit
- Physics and Astronomy
- Record Identifier
- 9984199943802771
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