Stationarity of the Reconnection X-Line at Earth's Magnetopause for Southward IMF

被引:15
|
作者
Fuselier, S. A. [1 ,2 ]
Trattner, K. J. [3 ]
Petrinec, S. M. [4 ]
Pritchard, K. R. [1 ,2 ]
Burch, J. L. [1 ]
Cassak, P. A. [5 ]
Giles, B. L. [6 ]
Lavraud, B. [7 ]
Strangeway, R. J. [8 ]
机构
[1] Southwest Res Inst, San Antonio, TX 78238 USA
[2] Univ Texas San Antonio, Dept Phys & Astron, San Antonio, TX 78249 USA
[3] Univ Colorado Boulder, Lab Atmospher & Space Phys, Boulder, CO USA
[4] Lockheed Martin Adv Technol Ctr, Palo Alto, CA USA
[5] West Virginia Univ, Dept Phys & Astron, Morgantown, WV 26506 USA
[6] NASA, Goddard Space Flight Ctr, Greenbelt, MD USA
[7] Univ Toulouse, Inst Rech Astrophys & Planetol, CNRS, UPS,CNES, Toulouse, France
[8] Univ Calif Los Angeles, Dept Earth & Space Sci, Los Angeles, CA 90024 USA
关键词
magnetic reconnection; magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling; magnetopause and boundary layers; INTERPLANETARY MAGNETIC-FIELD; DAYSIDE MAGNETOPAUSE; SITE;
D O I
10.1029/2019JA027143
中图分类号
P1 [天文学];
学科分类号
0704 ;
摘要
When the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) is southward and has a substantial Y component, reconnection at the magnetopause occurs at low latitudes. Under these conditions, the maximum magnetic shear model for the reconnection X-line at the magnetopause predicts a continuous X-line stretching from the dawn to dusk terminators. During the solstices, the X-line is not at the subsolar point and may be located in a region where the magnetosheath bulk flow is super-Alfvenic. For a fixed IMF direction, the maximum shear model also predicts a stationary X-line. In response to IMF clock angle changes on the timescale of minutes, the X-line moves on the same timescale. The stationarity of the reconnection X-line is testable observationally under certain, restrictive conditions. This stationarity is tested using observations from the Magnetospheric Multiscale mission. For two events, the distance from the Magnetospheric Multiscale spacecraft to the X-line is constant over several minutes (within relatively large error bars) and the X-line is also near the location predicted by the maximum magnetic shear model. Thus, the reconnection X-line at the magnetopause appears to be quasi-stationary for constant IMF clock angle. These observations also place constraints on the formation and motion of multiple X-lines at the magnetopause.
引用
收藏
页码:8524 / 8534
页数:11
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