HR: 1330h
AN: SM32A-1136    [PDF]
TI: Braking of Reconnection-Generated Plasma Flows
AU: * Pritchett, P L
EM: pritchet@physics.ucla.edu
AF: Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1547 United States
AU: Coroniti, F V
EM: coroniti@astro.ucla.edu
AF: Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1547 United States
AB: The NENL model of substorms accommodates the observed mapping of the auroral breakup arc to the near-Earth plasma sheet by positing that the disruption in this inner region is triggered by the braking of earthward flows that originate at the NENL in association with plasmoid formation and injection. The substorm current wedge is then associated with the eastward-directed inertial current. This braking of the reconnection generated flow hypothesis is tested via large-scale 3-D particle-in-cell simulations. The simulations are initialized with a dipole field plus distant neutral line configuration in which the neutral line is located at the down-tail boundary of the simulation. This configuration is unstable and leads to the earthward propagation of a high-speed plasma jet. The simulations are used to study the propagation of the jet, its tendency to develop structure in the east-west direction, its interaction with the near-Earth dipolar region, and the subsequent tailward ejection of localized structures on a scale of the order of 0.5 $R_E$.
DE: 2708 Current systems (2409)
DE: 2744 Magnetotail
DE: 2764 Plasma sheet
SC: SPA - Magnetospheric Physics [SM]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting