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| Titel |
Magnetotail thermal electrons as tracers of thin current sheets fine structure. |
| VerfasserIn |
Lev Zelenyi, Anton Artemyev, Anatolii Petrukovich, Rumi Nakamura |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2011
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 13 (2011) |
| Datensatznummer |
250046694
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| Zusammenfassung |
| The report is devoted to the investigation of the electron temperature Te distribution in thin
currents sheet of the Earth magnetotail. The statistical dependences of Te(Bx) are obtained
for 62 thin current sheet crossings by Cluster spacecraft. The profiles Te(Bx) can be
approximated by the equation Te = Temax(1 + α(Bx-Bext)2), where Temax and Bext are
the maximum value of electron temperature and the maximum value of the Bx component of
magnetotail magnetic field obtained from the pressure balance. The averaged value of the
parameter < α >--1. Observed Te(Bx) profiles could be quantitatively described by the
model of adiabatical electron heating during earthward plasma convection. The
comparison between the observed values of α and the theoretical predictions allows to
estimate the thin current sheet scales along the magnetotail Lx and to obtain the
ratio of Lx to the current sheet thickness L. For the majority of the observed thin
current sheets we obtain 5RE < Lx < 20RE and the corresponding ratio of scales
Lx-L - 25. We also discuss the possibility of the remote detection of the thin
current sheet structure in the deep and middle parts of magnetotail. The influence of
thin current sheet embedding inside the thick plasma sheet on the distribution of
the electron temperature could be also analyzed with the help of adiabatic model.
Embedding produces characteristic features often manifested in Te(Bx) profiles. |
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