HR: 0800h
AN: SM51C-0388    [Abstracts]
TI: A Survey of the Motion of Flux Transfer Events Observed by Polar
AU: * Zheng, Y
EM: yihua.zheng@gsfc.nasa.gov
AF: National Research Council, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Mailcode 696, Bldg. 21, Rm C218, Greenbelt, MD 20771 United States
AU: Le, G
EM: Guan.Le@nasa.gov
AF: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, LEP, Code 696, Greenbelt, MD 20771 United States
AU: Pfaff, R F
EM: Robert.F.Pfaff@nasa.gov
AF: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, LEP, Code 696, Greenbelt, MD 20771 United States
AU: Russell, C T
EM: ctrussell@igpp.ucla.edu
AF: Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics , UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1567 United States
AB: We present in this paper a survey of the motion of flux transfer events using high resolution magnetic and electric field data from the Polar spacecraft. We have surveyed the magnetic field data during the three-year period from 2001 to 2003 when Polar skimmed the dayside magnetopause near its apogee and identified 67 encounters of the dayside magnetopause with evidence of flux transfer events (FTEs). For each FTE identified, we determine the local structure of the flux tube (including the helical magnetic structure, the axial orientation and the intensity of the 'core' field.) and its E $\times$ B convection velocity. We investigate how the orientation and motion of flux tubes depend on the IMF (especially the By component) and the location on the magnetopause. The results will provide information on the nature of time-varying reconnection that is responsible for the generation of FTEs, especially the location and orientation of the X-line. Our statistical results of FTEs will be discussed in terms of the above perspectives.
DE: 2712 Electric fields (2411)
DE: 2724 Magnetopause, cusp, and boundary layers
DE: 2760 Plasma convection
DE: 2784 Solar wind/magnetosphere interactions
SC: SPA-Magnetospheric Physics [SM]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting