HR: 08:20h
AN: SM21B-02    [Abstracts]
TI: Simultaneous Geotail and Wind Detections of Reconnection at the Subsolar and Flank Magnetopause
AU: * Phan, T
EM: phan@ssl.berkeley.edu
AF: Space Sciences Laboratory, 7 Gauss Way, Berkeley, CA 94720 United States
AU: Fujimoto, M
EM: fujimoto@geo.titech.ac.jp
AF: Dept of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Meguro, 152 Japan
AU: Hasegawa, H
EM: hiroshi.hasegawa@dartmouth.edu
AF: Thayer School of Engineering, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755 United States
AU: Mukai, T
EM: mukai@stp.isas.ac.jp
AF: ISAS, Sagamihara, Kanagawa, 229 Japan
AB: We report a Geotail-Wind conjunction at the magnetopause when both spacecraft observed the occurrence of reconnection at the same time at the subsolar and flank magnetopause during stable By dominated IMF. Wind, located at the dawn flank and 6.6 RE below the magnetic equator, observed plasma jets consistent with the presence of a tilted reconnection X-line poleward of the spacecraft. At around the same time the Geotail spacecraft encountered the magnetopause multiple times in the subsolar region. During the multiple magnetopause crossings, Geotail observed jet reversals and the reversal of the polarity of the normal magnetic field associated with flux transfer events which indicate the presence of an X-line in the vicinity of the spacecraft (and of the subsolar region). Taken together, the Geotail and Wind observations are consistent with the component merging model which predicts a tilted X-line hinged at the subsolar point during By dominated IMF.
DE: 7835 Magnetic reconnection
DE: 2724 Magnetopause, cusp, and boundary layers
DE: 2784 Solar wind/magnetosphere interactions
SC: SPA-Magnetospheric Physics [SM]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting