HR: 0800h
AN: SM51C-0384    [Abstracts]
TI: Near Real Time Measurement of the Magnetospheric Reconnection Rate Using the Super Dual Auroral Radar Network
AU: * Blanchard, G T
EM: gblanchard@selu.edu
AF: Southeastern Louisiana University, Department of Chemistry and Physics, SLU 10878, Hammond, LA 70402 United States
AU: Baker, K B
EM: kbaker@nsf.gov
AF: National Science Foundation, Division of Atmospheric Sciences, Arlington, VA 22230 United States
AB: We present a technique to calculate the magnetic reconnection rate between the interplanetary magnetic field and the magnetosphere with a delay of approximately 10 minutes from real time. This technique is based on remote sensing of the F-region ionospheric plasma velocity using High Frequency (HF) radar. By using the Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN), this technique allows us to measure the reconnection rate along the entire dayside separatrix (0600 - 1800 MLT). The magnetic separatrix is identified as the ellipse that best separates high spectral width (>150 m/s) backscatter, indicative of open magnetic field lines, from low spectral width backscatter. A figure of merit indicates the confidence in this identification and the resulting reconnection rate measurement. The electric field on the separatrix is determined from the best fit of the line-of-sight F-region plasma velocity to an eighth-order spherical harmonic function of ionospheric electrical potential. The reconnection rate is determined from the electric field component along the separatrix in the separatrix rest frame. We also present examples of reconnection rate measurements using this technique.
DE: 7835 Magnetic reconnection
DE: 2411 Electric fields (2712)
DE: 2784 Solar wind/magnetosphere interactions
DE: 2794 Instruments and techniques
SC: SPA-Magnetospheric Physics [SM]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting