Potential and inductive electric fields in the magnetosphere during auroras

During quiescent auroras the large-scale electric field is essentially irrotational. The volume formed by the plasma sheet and its extension into the auroral oval is connected to an external source by electric currents, which enter and leave the volume at different electric potentials and which supply sufficient energy to support the auroral activity. The location of the actual acceleration of particles depends on the internal distribution of electric fields and currents. One important feature is the energization of the carriers of the cross-tail current and another is the acceleration of electrons precipitated through relatively low-altitude magnetic-field-aligned potential drops.Substorm auroras depend on rapid and (especially initially) localized release of energy that can only be supplied by tapping stored magnetic energy. The energy is transmitted to the charged particle via electric inductive fields.The primary electric field due to changing electric currents is redistributed in a complicated way—but never extinguished—by polarization of charges. As a consequence, any tendency of the plasma to suppress magnetic-field-aligned components of the electric fields leads to a corresponding enhancement of the transverse component.     

Model for the onset of a magnetospheric substorm

In view of observations which show that a substorm often begins in a small local time sector, a model is assumed in which the neutral sheet current is diverted around a small region we call a bubble. The simplest assumption is that of a linear variation of current with distance from the centre of the bubble in the x-direction in a SM coordinate system, with the diverted current being channelled within narrow paths of width δ_y on the dawn and dusk sides of the bubble. This assumption leads to vector potential integrals that can be evaluated analytically. The addition of this current loop into the magnetotail results in a magnetic field structure where new neutral lines of X- and 0-type can be observed; these are connected to each other as a continuous neutral ring in the xy equatorial plane. The magnetic and electric field components around the neutral regions are calculated, and the time dependent evolution of the neutral ring is studied. Comparison with some published satellite observations shows good agreement. Taking typical values for the various quantities on the basis of actual observations within the magnetotail, we show that the induced electric field is at least comparable to the average cross-tail electrostatic field, and it may well be one or two orders of magnitude greater. The response of the plasma to the induction field is discussed qualitatively. It is concluded that field aligned currents may be produced due to inertial forces of the expanding disturbance. Interpretation of the ground based precipitation patterns of energized particles during auroral breakup is given.     

Energy and pitch angle distributions for auroral ions using the current sheet acceleration model

Using a dipole plus tail magnetic field model, H⁺, He⁺⁺ and O ₁₆ ⁺⁶ ions are followed numerically, backward in time, from an output plane perpendicular to the axis of the geomagnetic tail, to their point of entrace to the magnetosphere as solar wind particles in the magnetosheath. An adiabatic or guiding center approximation is used in regions where the particles do not interact directly with the current sheet. A Maxwellian distribution with bulk flow is assumed for solar wind particles in the magnetosheath. Bulk velocity, density, and temperature along the magnetopause are taken from the fluid calculations of Spreiter. Using Liouville's theorem, and varying initial conditions at the output plane, the distribution function is found as a function of energy and pitch angle at the output plane. These results are then mapped to the auroral ionosphere using guiding center theory. Results show that the total precipitation rate is sufficient only for particles which enter the magnetosphere near the edges of the current sheet. Small pitch angles are favored at the output plane, but mappings to the auroral ionosphere indicate isotropic pitch angle distributions are favored with some peaking of the fluxes parallel or at other angles to the field lines. Perpendicular auroral pitch angle anisotropies are at times produced by the current sheet acceleration mechanism. Therefore, caution must be used in interpreting all such observations as ‘loss cone-trapping’ distributions. Energy spectra appear to be quite narrow for small cross-tail electric fields, and a little broader as the electric field increases. Comparisons of these results with experimental observations are presented.     

Particle Acceleration in Reconnecting Current Sheets in Impulsive Electron-Rich Solar Flares

Electron and proton acceleration in reconnecting current sheets in electron-rich solar flares is considered. A significant three-dimensional magnetic field is assumed in the current sheet where the particles are accelerated by the DC electric field. The tearing instability of a pre-flare current sheet leads to the formation of multiple singular lines of magnetic field where the electric and magnetic fields are coaligned. Magnetized electrons are shown to be accelerated to a few tens of MeV before they leave the vicinity of a singular line. The acceleration time is estimated to be less than 10^–3 s. By contrast, much heavier protons are unmagnetized and their energy gain is more modest. The model explains a high electron-to-proton ratio and the unusually intense gamma-ray continuum above 1 MeV observed in the electron-rich flares.     

Particle Acceleration by a Time-Varying Electric Field in Merging Magnetic Fields

Traditional models for particle acceleration by magnetic reconnection in solar flares assumed a constant electric field in a steady reconnecting magnetic field. Although this assumption may be justified during the gradual phase of flares, the situation is different during the impulsive phase. Observed rapid variations in flare emissions imply that reconnection is non-steady and a time-varying electric field is present in a reconnecting current sheet. This paper describes exploratory calculations of charged particle orbits in an oscillating electric field present either at a neutral plane or a neutral line of two-dimensional magnetic field. A simple analytical model makes it possible to explain the effects of particle trapping and resonant acceleration previously noted by Petkaki and MacKinnon in a numerical simulation. As an application, electron acceleration to X-ray generating energies in impulsive solar flares is discussed within the context of the model.     

A short wavelength instability in the neutral sheet of the earth's geomagnetic tail

In an earlier paper, Bowers (1973), ion plasma oscillations were found to be unstable in the steady state developed by Cowley (1972) for the neutral sheet in the Earth's geomagnetic tail. In this paper a similar stability analysis is carried out but for a different steady state, suggested by Dungey, with the result that unstable waves with frequencies near the electron plasma frequency are found. In the Dungey steady state the current necessary for magnetic field reversal is carried by plasma originating from both the magnetosheath and the lobes of the tail. This modifies the steady state proposed by Alfvén and subsequently developed by Cowley in which all the current is carried by plasma from the lobes of the tail thereby fixing the cross-tail potential Φ. With magnetosheath plasma present the value of Φ is no longer fixed solely by parameters in the lobes of the tail but the cross-tail electric field is still assumed localised in the dusk region of the sheet as in the Cowley model due to the balance of charge required in the neutral sheet. The value of Φ can be expected to increase as magnetic flux is transported to the tail which inflates and causes flux annihilation because the magneto-sheath plasma in the neutral sheet has insufficient pressure to keep the two lobes of the tail apart. The Vlasov-Maxwell set of equations is perturbed and linearised enabling a critical condition for instability to be found for modes propagating across the tail. Typically, this condition requireseΦ≳KT _m whereT _m is the temperature of magnetosheath electrons. The instability occurs in the presence of cold plasma which hasE×B drifted into the neutral sheet from the lobes of the tail. This contrasts with the usual two stream instability which is stabilised by the cold plasma. Once precipitated the instability may be explosive provided current disruption occurs, for then a further increase in Φ will result which drives a greater range of wave numbers unstable thereby causing even more turbulence and an even larger cross-tail electric field. Because of this behaviour the instability may be a trigger for a substorm.     

Non-linear tearing structures in equilibrium current sheet

A family of exact analytic solutions of the time-independent Vlasov-Maxwell equations is presented. The solutions describe two-dimensional equilibrium current sheet with magnetic field structures resembling that produced by the tearing instability. In particular, the solutions presented here do not restrict the field in the magnetic island to small magnitude. It is shown that as the scale length of the magnetic island increases, the thickness of the current sheet increases while the average current and the average magnetic energy decrease. The tearing structures described by the solutions may exist in the magnetotail current sheet, the magnetopause current layer and the field-aligned auroral sheet current.     

Decameter type IV bursts associated with coronal transients

Recent observations of neutral line absorbing features in the solar atmosphere may give an important clue to the mechanism whereby both type III solar radiobursts and solar flares are triggered. It is suggested that as new satellite magnetic flux emerges at the edge of an active region in an area of opposite polarity a neutral sheet builds up between the new and old flux. When the sheet has a length of about a megametre its thermal insulation from the surrounding plasma is effective enough for a thermal instability to occur. The resulting compression and inflow of plasma is observed in H on the disc as a neutral line absorbing feature. Furthermore, the electric field of the accompanying collisionless tearing mode instability in a thin slab near the centre of the sheet exceeds the runaway field; it may therefore accelerate electrons to high enough energies to produce the type III burst which usually occurs at the same time as the absorbing feature. Perhaps the flare which sometimes ensues is triggered when the quasi-equilibrium state is destroyed by the development of turbulence in the neutral sheet.     

Observations in the earth's magnetotail relating to magnetic merging

For more than a decade there has been growing conviction that the burst of energy from a solar flare is first stored in magnetic fields and is then released rapidly by magnetic field annihilation (magnetic merging). There has also been recognition that magnetic merging may be responsible for the energy release manifested in auroral phenomena at the Earth. The most substantial evidence that magnetic merging does indeed occur in the Earth's magnetosphere and causes the auroral phenomena is provided by recent observations, in the magnetotail, of very rapid (500 km s^–1) tailward, then earthward, flow of plasma during magnetospheric substorms. The observations, made with the Vela and IMP satellites, reveal also that the component of the tail magnetic field perpendicular to the tail neutral sheet changes polarity at the time of the reversal of plasma flow. These features are interpreted as indicative of passage of a magnetic neutral line, at which magnetic merging is proceeding, past the observing satellite. This paper describes an example of such observations made with IMP 6. It is anticipated that such systematic measurements of the plasma, energetic particles and magnetic field in the neighborhood of the passing neutral line on many such occasions will provide a general understanding of the magnetic merging process which can then be applied to studies of solar flares and other astrophysical phenomena.Work performed under the auspices of the U.S. Energy Research and Development Administration.     

Particle acceleration in reconnecting current sheets

We study motions of charged particles in reconnecting current sheets (CS) which have both transverse (perpendicular to the current sheet plane) and longitudinal (parallel to the electric current inside the sheet) components of the magnetic field. Such CS, called non-neutral, are formed in regions of magnetic field line reconnection in the solar atmosphere. We develop an analytical technique which allows us to reproduce previous results concerning the influence of transverse fields on particle motion and acceleration. This technique also allows us to evaluate the effect of the longitudinal field. The latter increases considerably the efficiency of particle acceleration in CS. The energizing of electrons during the main phase of solar flares can be interpreted as their acceleration in non-neutral CS.     

The Aurora and the magnetosphere: The Chapman memorial lecture

Magnetospheric physics owes its beginnings to the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century scientists who were fascinated by one of the most spectacular natural phenomena, the aurora. In the first section, a brief historical account of the growth of magnetospheric physics and solar-terrestrial physics is given.The main part of the paper reviews recent progress in magnetospheric physics, in particular, in understanding the magnetospheric substorm. A number of magnetospheric phenomena can now be understood by viewing the solar wind-magnetosphere interaction as an MHD dynamo; auroral phenomena are powered by the dynamo. We have also succeeded in identifying magnetospheric responses to variations of the north-south and east-west components of the interplanetary magnetic field.The magnetospheric substorm is entirely different from the responses of the magnetosphere to the southward component of the interplanetary magnetic field. It may be associated with the formation of a neutral line within the plasma sheet and with an enhanced reconnection along the line. A number of substorm-associated phenomena can be understood by noting that the new neutral line formation is caused by a short-circuiting of a part of the magnetotail current.     

Interaction between sheared flow and resistive tearing mode

We investigate the nonlinear evolution of resistive tearing mode in a current sheet with a sheared flow in a long, thin cylinder. The results show that a hyperbolic secant (sech) flow field will lead to instability of the resistive tearing mode, formation of magnetic islands and rapid release of magnetic energy. The coupling between sheared flow and the tearing mode and interaction between suprathermal instabilities change the degree of shear in the magnetic field (the electric current gradient) and drive the development of the instability. This process may be one of the mechanisms of solar flares.     

The features of auroral bulge expansion

The development of the auroral bulge during substorms is studied using all-sky data from the dense net of stations and also riometer data. A few features seem to be essential for the interpretation of the expansive phase mechanism. The first is the existence of low energy electron precipitation (auroral arcs with the lower border height near 140 km) polewards of the expanding bulge, suggesting that the bulge often arises and develops on closed field lines. Secondly only the localized bulges (with dimensions 2° and 40°Λ) are generated by the continuous deformation of the auroral arc. The greater expansions develop mainly at the expense of the new bright arc formations at the front of the expanding auroral bulge. During each new arc formation impulsive acceleration and precipitation of energetic electrons takes place and brief changes of plasma sheet geometry are sometimes observed at 18 R_E in the magnetotail. This apparently shows a re-distribution of plasma sheet current during the substorm expansive phase.     

Energies of Electrons Accelerated in Turbulent Reconnecting Current Sheets in Solar Flares

Yohkoh observations strongly suggest that electron acceleration in solar flares occurs in magnetic reconnection regions in the corona above the soft X-ray flare loops. Unfortunately, models for particle acceleration in reconnecting current sheets predict electron energy gains in terms of the reconnection electric field and the thickness of the sheet, both of which are extremely difficult to measure. It can be shown, however, that application of Ohm's law in a turbulent current sheet, combined with energy and Maxwell's equations, leads to a formula for the electron energy gain in terms of the flare power output, the magnetic field strength, the plasma density and temperature in the sheet, and its area. Typical flare parameters correspond to electron energies between a few tens of keV and a few MeV. The calculation supports the viewpoint that electrons that generate the continuum gamma-ray and hard X-ray emissions in impulsive solar flares are accelerated in a large-scale turbulent current sheet above the soft X-ray flare loops.     

Plasma sheet particle precipitation: A kinetic model

Ionospheric and plasma sheet particle densities, fluxes and bulk velocities along an auroral magnetic field line have been calculated for an ion-exosphere model. It is shown that such a collisionless model accounts for many features observed above the auroral regions. Except for very strong plasma sheet electron precipitation, no large potential difference is needed along the magnetic field lines to account for the usual proton and electron fluxes, their pitch angle distributions, and auroral field aligned currents.     

Acceleration of energetic particles of the outer regions of planetary magnetospheres: Inferences from laboratory and space experiments

High energy particles, with energies above those attainable by adiabatic or steady-state electric field acceleration, have been observed in and around the outer regions of planetary magnetospheres. Acceleration by large amplitude sporadic cross-tail electric fields over an order of magnitude greater than steady-state convection fields is proposed as a source of these particles. It is suggested that such explosive electric fields will occur intermittently in the vicinity of the tail neutral line in the expansive phases of substorms. We use laboratory Double Inverse Pinch Device (DIPD) and satellite evidence to estimate this electric potential for substorms at Earth; values of 500 kV to 2 MV are calculated, in agreement with particle observations. It is further suggested that these particles, which have been accelerated in the night side magnetosphere, drift to the dayside on closed field lines, and under certain interplanetary conditions can escape to regions upstream of the bow shock.     

Dynamics of cosmic current layers with localized lower-hybrid-drift turbulence

A two-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic model of the dynamics of tail-like current layers caused by anomalous electrical resistivity in a plasma with lower-hybrid-drift (LHD) turbulence is considered. Additionally to the LHD-resistivity, a resistivity pulse in the magnetic neutral sheet is given initiating a magnetic reconnection process. Then the temporal and spatial evolution of the magnetic and electric fields, the plasma convection and the anomalous resistivity are obtained numerically. Taking into account more exact expressions for the LHD-resistivity in the current layer as done in former works, the LHD-turbulence is found to be excited farther from the neutral sheet, and thus, with the time, secondary current sheets are obtained in the plasma-magnetic field system. It is shown that the inductive electric field moving from the magnetic neutral sheet to the current layer periphery during the reconnection process may be considered as indicator of the plasma disturbances.     

Thermal cyclotron radio emission of neutral current sheets in the solar corona

Cyclotron radiation (its frequency spectrum and polarization) of thermal electrons in a neutral current sheet is considered. It is shown that cyclotron radiation is able to escape only from a thin edge of the sheet where the magnetic field is practically homogeneous. Due to this, the frequency spectrum has the form of comparatively narrow lines with integer ratio of frequencies. This fact enables one to recognize neutral current sheets in the solar corona by their radio emission.     

Criticism of reconnection models of the magnetosphere

Reconnection involves singular lines called X-lines on the day and night sides of the magnetosphere, and the reconnection rate is proportional to the component of the electric field along the X-line. Although there is some indirect support for this model, nevertheless direct support is totally lacking. However, there are two distinct pieces of clearly contradictory observational evidence on the dayside. First is the failure to account for the implied energy dissipation by the magnetopause current, over 10¹¹ W, which should be easily observable as heating or enhanced flow of the plasma near the magnetopause. In marked contrast to this prediction, HEOS-2 satellite data reveal a plasma with decreased energy density and reduced flow. Second, the boundary of closed magnetic field lines is in the wrong location. In the reconnection process the plasma outflow would cut across open field lines toward higher latitudes; there should be a band of open field lines equatorward of the cleft. Observations of trapped energetic particles indicate closed field lines within the entry layer and cleft. Either one of these pieces of evidence is sufficient by itself to require drastic revision, even rejection, of the reconnection model. There is also contradictory evidence on the night side. The last closed field line capable of trapping energetic particles is poleward of auroral arcs. The implication is that the X-line is at the distant magnetopause, and not in the plasma sheet. Consequently, even if the reconnection process were operative at the nightside X-line, it would be isolated from steady state plasma sheet and auroral processes. On the other hand, substorm phenomena, in which stored magnetic energy is converted into particle kinetic energy, necessarily involve an induced electric field; that is excluded in theories of the reconnection process in which it is assumed that curl E = 0. Nevertheless, the observed easy access of energetic solar flare particles to the polar caps, and especially the preservation of interplanetary anisotropies as differences between the two polar caps, argues strongly for an open magnetosphere, with interconnection between geomagnetic and inter-planetary magnetic field lines. It is suggested that the resolution of this apparent paradox involves electric fields parallel to the magnetic field lines somewhere on the dawn and dusk sides of the magnetosphere, with an equipotential dayside magnetopause.