Storms and Substorms from Kinetic Plasma Theory Modeling

动力学等离子体理论模型中的风暴和亚暴

• 批准号: 0638480
• 负责人: Wendell Horton
• 金额: $ 32万
• 依托单位: University of Texas at Austin
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2007
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2007-04-01 至 2010-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0638480&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Storms; Substorms; Kinetic; Plasma; Theory

This project uses plasma physics and nonlinear theory to model the solar wind-driven storms and substorms in the Earth's magnetosphere. The project has three basic parts: (1) modeling of the nonlinear transfer of solar wind power to the Earth's ring current and ionosphere, (2) a theoretical and computational effort to model the electromagnetic pulses that propagate through the geotail plasma, which connect the two sites where substorm activity originates, and (3) using the Earthward propagating electromagnetic-plasma pulse as the source for injecting high energy electrons into the inner magnetosphere. The project involves kinetic stability analysis of anisotropic ion distributions created by high-speed plasma streams and accelerated plasma flux tubes to test the hypothesis that the source of Pi2 pulsation bursts are from these features of the storm and substorm dynamics. Local models of fast, electron-scale magnetic reconnection will be used in the substorm modeling. The base model runs in real-time using ACE spacecraft data and new features of this project will be added to the real-time model each year. The physics real-time model being developed will provide an important tool for interpreting the new data expected from the science missions THEMIS and MMS, which are both designed to examine the substorm conundrum. The substorm is the basic method by which magnetic energy in Earth's magnetotail is explosively released. The same type of process takes place in coronal mass ejections on the Sun and presumably on plasma-wind-blown magnetized stars. Similar processes occur in the core of laboratory plasmas in tokamaks. The research has a significant science educational component for both pre-college students and college students. The project will also support research to be done by graduate students.

该项目利用等离子体物理学和非线性理论模拟地球磁层中太阳风驱动的风暴和亚暴。 该项目有三个基本部分：（1）模拟太阳风能量向地球环电流和电离层的非线性传输，（2）对通过地球尾等离子体传播的电磁脉冲进行理论和计算模拟，地球尾等离子体连接亚暴活动起源的两个地点，（3）利用向地传播的电磁等离子体脉冲作为向内磁层注入高能电子的源。 该项目涉及高速等离子体流和加速等离子体通量管产生的各向异性离子分布的动力学稳定性分析，以测试Pi2脉动爆发的来源来自风暴和亚暴动力学的这些特征的假设。在亚暴模拟中将使用快速电子尺度磁场重联的局部模型。 基础模型使用ACE航天器数据实时运行，该项目的新功能将每年添加到实时模型中。 正在开发的物理学实时模型将为解释THEMIS和MMS科学飞行任务预期提供的新数据提供重要工具，这两项任务都是为了研究亚暴难题。亚暴是地球磁尾中的磁能爆炸性释放的基本方法。同样的过程发生在太阳的日冕物质抛射中，大概也发生在等离子体风吹的磁化恒星上。类似的过程发生在托卡马克实验室等离子体的核心。本研究对大学预科生和大学生都具有重要的科学教育意义。 该项目还将支持研究生进行的研究。