HR: 14:40h
AN: SM53C-05    [Abstracts]
TI: A Survey of High-Latitude Flux Transfer Events Observed by Cluster
AU: * Fear, R C
EM: rcf@mssl.ucl.ac.uk
AF: Mullard Space Science Laboratory University College London, Holmbury St. Mary Dorking, Surrey, RH5 6NT United Kingdom
AU: Fazakerley, A N
AF: Mullard Space Science Laboratory University College London, Holmbury St. Mary Dorking, Surrey, RH5 6NT United Kingdom
AU: Owen, C J
AF: Mullard Space Science Laboratory University College London, Holmbury St. Mary Dorking, Surrey, RH5 6NT United Kingdom
AU: Balogh, A
AF: Blackett Laboratory Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, Prince Consort Road, London, SW7 2BZ United Kingdom
AB: During Cluster's dayside magnetopause season (November - June), the four spacecraft cross the magnetopause near the magnetospheric cusps permitting high-latitude observations of Flux Transfer Events (FTEs), a signature of transient magnetopause reconnection. The combination of instruments available on Cluster, particularly the electron spectrometer PEACE and the Flux Gate Magnetometer, allow a range of FTE types to be identified. In some FTE observations, the spacecraft do not enter the reconnected flux tube and so observe no electron signature, but they do observe a magnetic field signature due to draping of the magnetosheath/magnetospheric magnetic field. In other cases, a magnetic field signature is either non-existent or difficult to resolve, but the electron data show exchange of plasma populations across the magnetopause and/or plasma acceleration. We will show examples of events where combining multiple instruments and four spacecraft at different separation scales helps to distinguish whether or not they are FTEs. We also present results of a compilation of a catalogue of FTEs observed by Cluster in the 2002/3 dayside season. Some statistical features observed are similar to the results of earlier surveys at lower latitudes. For example, the occurrence of FTEs exhibits a strong dependence on southward interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) with a broad peak in the dawnward-duskward component of the IMF. However, few FTEs are observed poleward of the cusps.
DE: 2724 Magnetopause, cusp, and boundary layers
DE: 2728 Magnetosheath
DE: 2731 Magnetosphere--outer
DE: 2784 Solar wind/magnetosphere interactions
SC: SPA-Magnetospheric Physics [SM]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting