HR: 14:45h
AN: SM43B-05    [Abstracts]
TI: The Role of Interchange Reconnection at the Sun, in the Heliosphere, and in Earth's Magnetosphere
AU: * Crooker, N U
EM: crooker@bu.edu
AF: Boston University, Center for Space Physics, 725 Commonwealth Ave., Boston, MA 02215 United States
AU: Siscoe, G L
EM: siscoe@bu.edu
AF: Boston University, Center for Space Physics, 725 Commonwealth Ave., Boston, MA 02215 United States
AB: "Interchange reconnection" is the name given to reconnection between open and closed magnetic field lines. It interchanges closed loops, and it transports open field lines over distances comparable to the spans of the reconnecting loops. First recognized as the process for maintaining coronal hole boundaries on the Sun in the face of differential rotation, it has more recently become a touchstone for understanding a wide range of solar and heliospheric phenomena like the opening of magnetic fields in interplanetary coronal mass ejections, the release of plasma parcels at the tops of helmet streamers, and the global circulation of solar magnetic footpoints and its wide-ranging implications. Most recently, interchange reconnection has been recognized as a magnetospheric process. As in solar models of global circulation, interchange reconnection prevents the build up of magnetic flux in magnetospheric convection flows by allowing open field lines to leap over volumes of closed field lines. With the aid of numerical models, we report on progress in applying this concept to understand convection patterns during periods of northward interplanetary magnetic field.
DE: 7524 Magnetic fields
DE: 7835 Magnetic reconnection
DE: 2760 Plasma convection
SC: SPA-Magnetospheric Physics [SM]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting