Energy Budget of High-speed Plasma Flows in the Terrestrial Magnetotail

Ma, Yuduan, Yang, Jian, Dunlop, M. W., Rae, Jonathan and Yang, Junying (2020) Energy Budget of High-speed Plasma Flows in the Terrestrial Magnetotail. The Astrophysical Journal, 894 (1). p. 16. ISSN 1538-4357

[img]
Preview
Text
Ma_2020_ApJ_894_16.pdf - Published Version

Download (2MB) | Preview
Official URL: https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ab83fd

Abstract

Significant advances have been presented for the theoretical model and quantitative investigation of the energy input from the solar wind and its subsequent release into the ring current, the Joule heating, and particle precipitation energy flux that are closely related to high-speed flows in the plasma sheet of the terrestrial magnetotail during both isolated and storm-time substorms. Here we further determine the plasma flow vorticity/shear and heating observed in the terrestrial magnetotail by the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission by deducing that other energy may be dissipated along with the above-mentioned three energy releases. The energy transported by the flow is also estimated here. Three-dimensional observations have shown new detailed information that can be compared with quasi-2D simulations. In this investigation, we calculate vorticity/shear directly from simultaneous observation of four MMS satellites. Our results generally indicate that plasma heating or temperature enhancements are related to both the flow vorticity/shear and current density, but more strongly with flow vorticity/shear. This research suggests that the ubiquitous energy input from the solar wind can be used to estimate plasma heating or temperature enhancements in the absence of any process or phenomenon relating to explosive energy release in planetary magnetospheres.

Item Type: Article
Subjects: F300 Physics
F500 Astronomy
Department: Faculties > Engineering and Environment > Mathematics, Physics and Electrical Engineering
Depositing User: Elena Carlaw
Date Deposited: 30 Sep 2020 11:03
Last Modified: 31 Jul 2021 12:50
URI: http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/44353

Actions (login required)

View Item View Item

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

View more statistics