GEM: Development and Application of Thin Filament Techniques for Magnetospheric Physics

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This project will generalize an existing two-dimensional computer code to three dimensions. The generalized code will then be used to attack several significant scientific problems associated with the dynamics of Earth's magnetotail: (1) understanding the dynamics of bursty bulk flows and interchange oscillations; (2) analysis of the ballooning instability in the plasma sheet; (3) assessment of the accuracy with which global codes solve their differential equations; and (4) theoretical estimation of the effect of a cross-tail directed magnetic guide-field on plasma motion that results from patchy magnetic reconnection in the magnetotail. The project will provide better quantitative understanding of Pi2 oscillations, which accompany both substorms and bursty bulk flows, and of other oscillations that appear in MHD simulations. It will provide an alternative computational picture of the ballooning instability, providing insight into its nonlinear development. It will enable rigorous testing of the accuracy with which large-scale 3D codes, which are used widely in magnetospheric physics, solve their differential equations. This project addresses the topic of the evolution of plasma flows in the magnetotail during magnetic substorms. The project will support a graduate student, who will be given the opportunity to personally develop, code, and apply a new computer code to address a set of scientific questions. At the end of the project, the resulting code will be made available for use by members of the broader space physics community.