The origins of planar magnetic structures in the solar wind

Journal Article · Tue Jun 01 04:00:00 EDT 1993 · Journal of Geophysical Research; (United States)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1029/93JA00216· OSTI ID:6042540

Neugebauer, M; Clay, D R ^[1]; Gosling, J T ^[2]

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1. California Inst. of Technology, Pasadena (United States)
2. Los Alamos National Lab., NM (United States)

The authors report on an assessment of extensive solar wind and interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) data obtained by ISEE-3, between Aug 1978 and Oct 1982, when it was upstream of the earth's bow shock. They looked for events given the name planar magnetic structure (PMS). A PMS event is a series of abrupt changes in the IMF, where the magnetic field is observed to take almost all values in some plane. Numerous possible explanations have been offered for these phenomena, and the authors looked at this data set to see if it would aid in the understanding of the origin of PMS. They observed the PMS events to generally be associated with two events: they tended to occur near the interplanetary current sheet, or; they tended to occur in the sheath of the wind plasma between an interplanetary shock, and the plasma which drove it.

• OSTI ID: 6042540
• Journal Information: Journal of Geophysical Research; (United States), Journal Name: Journal of Geophysical Research; (United States) Vol. 98:A6; ISSN JGREA2; ISSN 0148-0227
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

661320* -- Auroral
Ionospheric
& Magnetospheric Phenomena-- (1992-)
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
INTERPLANETARY MAGNETIC FIELDS
MAGNETIC FIELDS
MOTION
ORIGIN
ROTATION
SOLAR ACTIVITY
SOLAR WIND