Premium
Two spacecraft observation of plasma sheet convection jet during continuous external driving
Author(s) -
Yermolaev Yu. I.,
Sergeev V. A.,
Zelenyi L. M.,
Petrukovich A. A.,
Sauvaud J. A.,
Mukai T.,
Kokubun S.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/1998gl900118
Subject(s) - plasma sheet , jet (fluid) , convection , physics , plasma , spacecraft , flux (metallurgy) , dusk , atmospheric sciences , geophysics , astrophysics , mechanics , magnetosphere , materials science , astronomy , nuclear physics , metallurgy
During ∼18 hours of continuous activity caused by long interval of southward IMF, the INTERBALL/Tail Probe and GEOTAIL spacecraft monitored the plasma sheet in dusk and dawn sectors of the midtail plasma sheet at 25–30 R E . While bursty bulk flows were persistently observed at both spacecraft, there was a systematic difference between the hourly averages of the Earthward flux transport. During a 3‐hour interval the average flux transport rate ( E y ) on GEOTAIL (dawn plasma sheet) was ∼3 times larger than both the average E y on INTERBALL (dusk plasma sheet), and the cross‐tail E y0 expected for the existing IMF conditions. This implies that the most intense bursty bulk flows tend to be confined within a limited longitudinal sector of the magnetotail ( X < −30 R E ) forming the observed average convection jet feature.