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Does the ponderomotive force move mass in the magnetosphere?
Author(s) -
Allan W.,
Manuel J. R.,
Poulter E. M.
Publication year - 1990
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/gl017i007p00917
Subject(s) - physics , magnetopause , magnetosphere , ponderomotive force , plasma , adiabatic process , plasmasphere , alfvén wave , computational physics , magnetohydrodynamics , boundary value problem , mechanics , quantum electrodynamics , atomic physics , classical mechanics , quantum mechanics
We apply a two‐dimensional, nonlinear hydromagnetic computer code to the problem of pure fast mode cavity resonances in a box model of the magnetosphere. The cavity modes are excited by a magnetopause compression and relaxation with maximum boundary velocity v 0 . The results show that significant mass transport of relatively low energy plasma by the wave fields may be possible for v 0 / A 0 ∼ 0.2, where A 0 is the Alfvén speed at the boundary. For a likely field‐aligned perturbatiou structure, the mass tends to accumulate at and near the equatorial plane. We interpret this mass transport as being driven by the ponderomotive force, which is finally limited by opposing pressure gradients in a finite β plasma. Heating by adiabatic compression of the plasma is also seen.