Is steady convection possible in the earth's magnetotail
Journal Article
·
· Geophys. Res. Lett.; (United States)
Presented is a theoretical argument suggesting that steady, adiabatic convection probably cannot occur throughout a closed-magnetic-field-line region that extends into a long magnetotail. If plasma in a typical flux tube in the Earth's outer plasma sheet were compressed adiabatically as it convected into the near-Earth part of the plasma sheet, the plasma pressure would be absurdly large there. This excess-pressure problem is demonstrated numerically for several standard models of the magnetospheric magnetic field, for the case of isotropic pressure. It is argued that the excess-pressure problem results from the general shapes of field lines in the inner and outer plasma sheet, and not from simple inaccuracies in all the magnetic-field models. We hypothesize that sunward convection must necessarily be time-dependent, and that the magnetospheric substorm may be the essential time-dependent process in which the plasma is suddenly and non-adiabatically released from plasma-sheet flux tubes.
- Research Organization:
- Rice Univ., Houston, TX
- OSTI ID:
- 6562690
- Journal Information:
- Geophys. Res. Lett.; (United States), Journal Name: Geophys. Res. Lett.; (United States) Vol. 7:11; ISSN GPRLA
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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