Magnetospheric Current Sheets and Boundary Layers

这项正在进行的研究计划涉及一些 物理过程和结构，发生在薄电 电流片和等离子体边界层 磁层，特别强调磁层顶。 这 电流片形成磁层的外边界， 将其与快速流动的太阳风隔开。 拟议 研究集中在三个领域。 首先是 数据分析的开发和测试 单航天器数据的方法，可用于检查 二维或三维的结构， 磁层顶本身以及凸起的几何形状，或 磁层顶的变形，由磁通量引起 跨当前层的连接（所谓的FTE）或通过 太阳风中的动压脉冲。 使用的数据 在这一部分的研究中， 飞船 第二个领域涉及分析的发展 一维电流片的数值模型 代表所谓的中间冲击， 和非耗散的旋转间断。 两 这些类型的磁性和等离子体结构已经被 提出代表磁层顶期间的磁 场重连 第三个研究领域是重联 程序本身及其启动方式， 在太阳下磁层顶附近的区域生长。 分析 理论，以及数值模拟方法将被采用。

This ongoing research program is concerned with some of the physical processes and structures that occur in thin electrical current sheets and plasma boundary layers in the Earth's magnetosphere, with special emphasis on the magnetopause. This current sheet forms the outer boundary of the magnetosphere and separates it from the rapidly streaming solar wind. The proposed research is centered in three areas. The first of these is concerned with the development and testing of data-analysis methods for single-spacecraft data that can be used to examine the two-dimensional or three-dimensional structure of the magnetopause itself as well as the geometry of bulges, or deformations of the magnetopause, caused by magnetic flux connection across the current layer (so-called FTEs) or by dynamic-pressure pulses in the solar wind. The data to be used in this part of the study were obtained by the AMPTE/IRM spacecraft. The second area concerns the development of analytic and numerical models of one-dimensional current sheets representing so-called intermediate shocks which are dissipative and rotational discontinuities, which are nondissipative. Both of these types of magnetic and plasma structures have been proposed to represent the magnetopause during periods of magnetic field reconnection. The third area of study is the reconnection process itself and the manner in which it may be initiated and grow in the region near the subsolar magnetopause. Analytical theory, as well as numerical simulation methods will be employed.