HR: 11:16h
AN: SM22A-04 INVITED     [Abstracts]
TI: Onset and Cessation of Magnetic Reconnection: Missing Links of Substorm Evolution
AU: * Hesse, M
EM: michael.hesse@nasa.gov
AF: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Code 674, Greenbelt, MD 20771, United States
AU: Birn, J
EM: jbirn@lanl.gov
AF: Los Alamos National Laboratory, Space Physics Group, Los Alamos, NM , United States
AU: Kuznetsova, M
EM: mkusnetz@pop600.gsfc.nasa.gov
AF: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Code 674, Greenbelt, MD 20771, United States
AU: Schindler, K
EM: kschindler@aol.com
AF: Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany, Theoretische Physik IV,
AB: Magnetic reconnection determines the overall evolution of a magnetic substorm. As the primary conversion process of magnetic energy to particle bulk kinetic and thermal energy, it also provides the new magnetic flux, which is threading the main current sheet during the substorm dipoloarization. Owing to the critical importance of reconnection to substorm evolution, the questions of when and how reconnection starts, and how reconnection ceases require answers if magnetospheric evolution is to be described quantitatively. In this presentation, we present a brief overview of research into both questions. Specifically, we will show that thin current sheets play a critical role in reconnection, and hence, substorm initiation, and we will describe a number of candidate causes for reconnection cessation.
DE: 2753 Numerical modeling
DE: 2788 Magnetic storms and substorms (7954)
DE: 7526 Magnetic reconnection (2723, 7835)
SC: SPA-Magnetospheric Physics [SM]
MN: 2007 Joint Assembly