Theory of the auroral magnetosphere

Technical Report · Tue Sep 01 04:00:00 EDT 1981

OSTI ID:6236159

Schulz, M; Chiu, Y T; Cornwall, J M

The aurora has come to be understood as a manifestation of energy transfer and plasma transfer from the solar wind to the magnetosphere. The auroral oval seems to be a mapping of the boundary layer that lies just inside the magnetospheric surface, which consists of the magnetopause and neutral sheet. The auroral oval is consequently a region of reversal for the meridional (r,8) component of the magnetospheric convection electric field and thus a region of strong shear in the plasma drift velocity field. The velocity shear seems to account for the formation of eddies in the auroral curtain . Moreover, the Kinematical impedance associated with hot auroral plasma perpendicular electric field across a narrow region of latitude to occur without the formation of a large parallel electric field. The signature of the parallel electric field is such as to produce upgoing ion beams and precipitating electron beams in the PM (afternoon-evening) sector of local time, and to account for the polarity of Region-1 currents as a function of local time.

• Research Organization: Aerospace Corp., El Segundo, CA (USA)
• OSTI ID: 6236159
• Report Number(s): NASA-CR-168648
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

640203* -- Atmospheric Physics-- Magnetospheric Phenomena-- (-1987)
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
AURORAL ZONES
BOUNDARY LAYERS
EARTH ATMOSPHERE
ENERGY TRANSFER
LAYERS
MAGNETOPAUSE
MAGNETOSPHERE
SOLAR ACTIVITY
SOLAR WIND