HR: 1340h
AN: SM13C-1465    [Abstracts]
TI: Modeling particle distributions with a global magnetospheric model with embedded magnetotail thin current sheet
AU: * Stark, D
EM: stark3@umd.edu
AF: University of Maryland, Department of Astronomy, College Park, MD 20742, United States
AU: Sharma, A
EM: ssh@astro.umd.edu
AF: University of Maryland, Department of Astronomy, College Park, MD 20742, United States
AU: Jain, N
EM: njain@astro.umd.edu
AF: University of Maryland, Department of Astronomy, College Park, MD 20742, United States
AB: The thin current sheet in the magnetotail is a site for particle energization during magnetic reconnection, and affects the particle distributions at other parts of the magnetosphere. The self-consistent models of the thin current sheet are combined with a global magnetic field (Tsyganenko et al., 2002) to obtain a model of the magnetospheric field suitable for the study of particle distributions at different locations. In order to identify the signatures of a reconnecting magnetic field at different regions, models of the magnetospheric field are obtained by combining the Tsyganenko model with a thin current sheet equilibrium and a current sheet with a magnetic island. The particle distributions in these cases are then studied using particle-in-cell techniques. Although the PIC simulations may not yield the self-consistent evolution of the magnetosphere due to the limitations in the number of particles per cell, it yields a very good sampling of the particle distributions under the specified conditions at different regions of the magnetotail. These simulations will be used to identify the signatures of processes such as plasma flows (tailward vs. Earthward), multiple resonances effects, etc. The particle distributions obtained from the combined magnetospheric field can be compared with multi-point measurements and thus provide a framework for the understanding of data from multispacecraft missions.
DE: 2723 Magnetic reconnection (7526, 7835)
DE: 2744 Magnetotail
DE: 2764 Plasma sheet
DE: 2784 Solar wind/magnetosphere interactions
DE: 2790 Substorms
SC: SPA-Magnetospheric Physics [SM]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting