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Dawnward Drifting Interchange Heads in the Earth's Magnetotail
Author(s) -
Panov E. V.,
Pritchett P. L.
Publication year - 2018
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 - 10.1029/2018gl078482
Subject(s) - substorm , ballooning , physics , instability , plasma sheet , plasma , current sheet , earth radius , geophysics , azimuth , magnetosphere , mechanics , magnetohydrodynamics , nuclear physics , optics , tokamak
A fortuitous configuration of five Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms probes indicated that on 15 February 2008 between 04:00 and 11:00 UT a B Z dip with radial size of about 2.5 Earth radii ( R E ) and azimuthal size that could be as large as 10 R E was present for over 3 hr in the plasma sheet at X GSM ≈ −11 R E . Ballooning/InterChange Instability heads were observed at the tailward side of the dip with ∂ B Z / ∂ X≈ −10 nT/ R E . The Ballooning/InterChange Instability heads appeared to drift azimuthally toward dawn, in accord with particle‐in‐cell simulations of a charged current sheet. The signatures of the latter, for example, a finite average E Z directed toward the center of the plasma sheet, are verified by the Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms data.