HR: 0800h
AN: SM51B-0369    [Abstracts]
TI: FTE Structures: Multi-Spacecraft Observation and Global Modeling Combined
AU: * Wang, Y
EM: ywang@lanl.gov
AF: Space and Atmospheric Sciences, Los Alamos National Laboratory, P.O.Box 1663, MS D466, Los Alamos, NM 87545 United States
AU: Elphic, R C
EM: relphic@lanl.gov
AF: Space and Atmospheric Sciences, Los Alamos National Laboratory, P.O.Box 1663, MS D466, Los Alamos, NM 87545 United States
AU: Birn, J
EM: jbirn@lanl.gov
AF: Space and Atmospheric Sciences, Los Alamos National Laboratory, P.O.Box 1663, MS D466, Los Alamos, NM 87545 United States
AU: Raeder, J
EM: J.Raeder@unh.edu
AF: Space Science Center, University of New Hampshire, 39 College Road, Durham, NH 03824-3525 United States
AU: Lavraud, B
EM: lavraud@lanl.gov
AF: Space and Atmospheric Sciences, Los Alamos National Laboratory, P.O.Box 1663, MS D466, Los Alamos, NM 87545 United States
AU: Taylor, M G
EM: mggt@mssl.ucl.ac.uk
AF: Mullard Space Science Laboratory, University College London, Holmbury St. Mary, Dorking, Surrey, RH5 6NT United Kingdom
AU: Thomsen, M F
EM: mthomsen@lanl.gov
AF: Space and Atmospheric Sciences, Los Alamos National Laboratory, P.O.Box 1663, MS D466, Los Alamos, NM 87545 United States
AB: The solar wind is a crucial driver for the dynamics of the Earth's magnetosphere. One of the most effective ways to transfer mass, momentum and energy from the solar wind into the Earth's magnetosphere is through magnetic reconnection at the magnetopause. An important mode of reconnection produces patchy, transient flux transfer events (FTEs). The structure of FTEs carries important information about the Sun-Earth coupling. However, conventional observations with single satellites and simulations with restricted spatial range have significant limitations for revealing the real nature of FTEs. Recent progress in both FTE observations with multi-spacecraft and FTE simulations with global MHD models greatly advances our understanding of FTEs. However, even multi-spacecraft observations still fall short of obtaining the global structure and evolution of FTEs, e.g., the determination of FTEs on some typical characteristics of observations may be misleading because of the complexity of FTE structures and different paths of the spacecraft across FTEs. In this study, we use global FTE simulation results to investigate the influence of different factors, including the path of the spacecraft through an FTE flux tube, on FTE observational signatures by running pseudo-spacecraft through a simulated FTE. We find significant dependence of FTE observational signatures on those factors. The results of this study are further used to determine a better observational FTE definition and expected signatures. We show that the combination of state-of-the-art FTE observations and simulations can significantly enhance our ability to interpret multi-spacecraft FTE observations. Meanwhile, it helps us to better understand model results for further model improvements.
DE: 2724 Magnetopause, cusp, and boundary layers
DE: 2740 Magnetospheric configuration and dynamics
DE: 2753 Numerical modeling
DE: 2784 Solar wind/magnetosphere interactions
SC: SPA-Magnetospheric Physics [SM]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting