Document Type

Article

Publication Date

3-23-2006

Publication Title

Annales Geophysicae

Department

Thayer School of Engineering

Abstract

The structure and formation mechanism of a to- tal of five Flux Transfer Events (FTEs), encountered on the equatorward side of the northern cusp by the Cluster space- craft, with separation of ∼5000 km, are studied by apply- ing the Grad-Shafranov (GS) reconstruction technique to the events. The technique generates a magnetic field/plasma map of the FTE cross section, using combined magnetic field and plasma data from all four spacecraft, under the assump- tion that the structure is two-dimensional (2-D) and time- independent. The reconstructed FTEs consist of one or more magnetic flux ropes embedded in the magnetopause, suggest- ing that multiple X-line reconnection was involved in gener- ating the observed FTEs. The dimension of the flux ropes in the direction normal to the magnetopause ranges from about 2000 km to more than 1 RE . The orientation of the flux rope axis can be determined through optimization of the GS map, the result being consistent with those from various single-spacecraft methods. Thanks to this, the unambiguous presence of a strong core field is confirmed, providing evi- dence for component merging. The amount of magnetic flux contained within each flux rope is calculated from the map and, by dividing it by the time interval between the preced- ing FTE and the one reconstructed, a lower limit of the re- connection electric field during the creation of the flux rope can be estimated; the estimated value ranges from ∼0.11 to ∼0.26 mV m−1, with an average of 0.19 mV m−1. This can be translated to the reconnection rate of 0.038 to 0.074, with an average of 0.056. Based on the success of the 2-D model in recovering the observed FTEs, the length of the X-lines is estimated to be at least a few RE .

DOI

10.5194/angeo-24-603-2006

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