New Approach of Plasma Sheet Transport

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Present theories of magnetic reconnection fail to account for magnetospheric substorms. Recent measurements of impulsive, short duration, high velocity flow bursts directed towards the Earth also do not conform to the standard picture of magnetospheric convection at quiet times. This grant is for support to study observationally and theoretically the small scale dynamics of the plasma sheet prior to substorm breakup. The observational part will characterize individual flow bursts using AMPTE satellite measurements so as to deduce information that might lead to a better understanding of the their dynamics. The theoretical objective will be to develop a one-dimensional nonlinear travelling wave model of an individual flow burst incorporating the effects of non-adiabaticity in the ion dynamics.