Solar wind and substorm excitation of the wavy current sheet
Following a solar wind pressure pulse on 3 August 2001, GOES 8, GOES 10, Cluster and Polar observed dipolarizations of the magnetic field, accompanied by an eastward expansion of the aurora observed by IMAGE, indicating the occurrence of two substorms. Prior to the first substorm, the motion of t...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Copernicus Publications
2009-06-01
|
| Series: | Annales Geophysicae |
| Online Access: | https://www.ann-geophys.net/27/2457/2009/angeo-27-2457-2009.pdf |
| Summary: | Following a solar wind pressure pulse on 3 August 2001, GOES 8, GOES 10,
Cluster and Polar observed dipolarizations of the magnetic field, accompanied
by an eastward expansion of the aurora observed by IMAGE, indicating the
occurrence of two substorms. Prior to the first substorm, the motion of the
plasma sheet with respect to Cluster was in the <I>Z</I><sub>GSM</sub> direction.
Observations following the substorms show the occurrence of current sheet
waves moving predominantly in the −<I>Y</I><sub>GSM</sub> direction. Following the second
substorm, the current sheet waves caused multiple current sheet crossings of
the Cluster spacecraft, previously studied by Zhang et al. (2002). We further
this study to show that the velocity of the current sheet waves was similar
to the expansion velocity of the substorm aurora and the expansion of the
dipolarization regions in the magnetotail. Furthermore, we compare these
results with the current sheet wave models of Golovchanskaya and Maltsev (2005) and
Erkaev et al.
(2008). We find that the Erkaev et al. (2008) model gives the best
fit to the observations. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 0992-7689 1432-0576 |