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Dayside reconnected field lines in the south‐dusk near‐tail flank during an IMF B y > 0 dominated period
Author(s) -
Fujimoto M.,
Mukai T.,
Matsuoka A.,
Nishida A.,
Terasawa T.,
Seki K.,
Hayakawa H.,
Yamamoto T.,
Kokubun S.,
Lepping R. P.
Publication year - 1997
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 - 10.1029/97gl00106
Subject(s) - physics , solar wind , geophysics , flux (metallurgy) , ionosphere , interplanetary magnetic field , convection , field line , dusk , southern hemisphere , exosphere , magnetosphere , ion , geology , astrophysics , plasma , meteorology , astronomy , materials science , quantum mechanics , metallurgy
A prolonged period of B y > 0 dominated IMF conditions was monitored by WIND on Dec., 18–19, 1994. Observations on convection over the southern polar cap in the middle of this period (IMF B z ∼ 0) were available from AKEBONO. Detection of the well‐known dawn‐to‐dusk flow observing simultaneously energy‐dispersed ions in the cusp strongly indicates that the field lines reconnected at the dayside were azimuthally accelerated. GEOTAIL happened to be in the duskside flank at (X GSM , Z GSM ) ∼ (−15 ∼ −23, −1 ∼ −7)R E . The GEOTAIL data not only prove that this near‐tail flank region in the southern hemisphere is filled with azimuthally accelerated flux tubes that are loaded with solar wind plasma, but they also show that O + ions are transported tailward along these field lines. The latter is a new finding which suggests a route for transporting O + ions from the ionosphere to the magnetotail.