New Approach of Plasma Sheet Transport

目前的磁重联理论不能解释磁层亚暴。最近对指向地球的脉冲、短时间、高速流爆发的测量也不符合安静时期磁层对流的标准图像。这项资助是为了支持对亚暴破裂前等离子体片的小尺度动力学进行观测和理论研究。观测部分将使用AMPTE卫星测量来描述单个流爆发的特征，从而推断出可能导致更好地理解其动力学的信息。理论目标将是建立一个包含离子动力学中非绝热效应的单个流动爆发的一维非线性行波模型。

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.