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Persistent URL http://purl.org/net/epubs/work/36430
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Record Id 36430
Title The magnetopause transition parameter as an indicator of dayside reconnection
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Abstract This paper will review the magnetopause transition parameter and its use as an indicator that the low-latitude boundary layer of the Earth's magnetosphere is generated by mixing of magnetosheath and magnetospheric plasma on magnetic field lines recently opened by reconnection. When plotted as time series, plasma parameters measured during LLBL crossings show frequent fluctuations between magnetosheath, magnetospheric and a range of intermediate conditions. But there is a remarkable order underlying these fluctuations. The electron density and temperature are strongly anti-correlated and a "transition parameter" based on this anti-correlation brings order to independent plasma measurements such as the magnetic field, plasma velocity and electron anisotropy. Lockwood and Hapgood (1997) have shown that the anti-correlation can be explained by plasma mixing on newly opened field lines. This allows us to interpret transition parameter as a relative measure of position across the outflow region from the reconnection X-line and the ordering of independent parameters as their ordering in that outflow. The transition parameter is a powerful test for the presence of reconnection and can be used to search for other features expected in the outflow region such as rotational discontinuities, slow mode shocks and expansion fans propagating away from the reconnection site and standing in the inflow on both sides of the current sheet.
Organisation CCLRC , SSTD
Keywords Physics , Cluster , reconnection , magnetopause , transition parameter , AMPTE
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Language English (EN)
Type Details URI(s) Local file(s) Year
Presentation Presented at Solar-Terrestrial Magnetic Fields & Reconnection , London, UK. tp_v1.pdf 2006