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

这个项目将把现有的二维计算机代码推广到三维。然后将使用广义代码来解决与地球磁尾动力学相关的几个重要科学问题：(1)理解突发体流和交换振荡的动力学；(2)等离子体片气胀不稳定性分析；(3)评估全局码解微分方程的精度；(4)理论估计了横尾导向磁场对磁尾中斑块磁重联引起的等离子体运动的影响。该项目将为Pi2振荡提供更好的定量理解，Pi2振荡伴随着亚暴和突发体流，以及MHD模拟中出现的其他振荡。它将提供另一种计算图像的气球不稳定性，提供洞察其非线性发展。它将能够对大规模三维代码的精度进行严格的测试，这些代码在磁层物理学中广泛使用，可以解决它们的微分方程。本项目研究了磁亚暴期间磁尾中等离子体流动的演变。该项目将支持一名研究生，他将有机会亲自开发、编码和应用一种新的计算机代码来解决一系列科学问题。在项目结束时，产生的代码将可供更广泛的空间物理社区的成员使用。

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.