Density and temperature evolution of the plasma sheet during a simulated interval of northward interplanetary magnetic field

作者：Mata Wendy J; Lemon Colby^*; Wang Chih Ping; Lyons Larry R

来源：JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH-SPACE PHYSICS, 2014, 119(6): 4607-4620.

DOI：10.1002/2013JA019336

We investigate the evolution of the hot component of plasma sheet ions during an extended interval of northward interplanetary magnetic field and assess whether transport can explain the observed cooling of the hot component ions reported by Wing et al. (2005). Our approach is to trace the guiding center particle drift of protons in a magnetic field from the Tsyganenko 2001 (T01) model and in an electric field from the Weimer 2000 model. We then map the phase space distributions to realistic source distributions based on Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms observations. Our simulation results show that magnetic drift is not a significant cooling mechanism for the hot component ions of the plasma sheet on the duskside of the magnetopause, but gradient drift does cool the hot component plasma on the dawnside of the magnetopause.

• 出版日期2014-6