GEM: Quantifying the Effects of Inductive Electric Fields in the Terrestrial Magnetosphere

磁层物理学中的一个主要问题是太阳风和电离层粒子的典型能量如何从几个eV的能量加速到通常在近地空间观察到的数百keV的能量。 这种加速的需要意味着在磁层内产生一个电势，该电势被施加到沿地磁通量管沿着移动的粒子上。 在建模这种潜力的挑战性的任务在于产生的电感效应的估计所产生的存在下，一个随时间变化的磁场相比，潜在的，是一个部分的等离子体对流过程中的geotail。这种分割的程度在地球空间研究中仍然是一个悬而未决的问题。该奖项将模拟这种加速机制的物理学，以确定由磁场的时间变化引起的感应电场的大小，并与潜在电场源的大小进行比较。该奖项将产生的后果，潜在的和感应电场驱动的对流导致的发展的风暴时间环电流的相对贡献将在某些情况下变得量化。 一位刚开始担任助理教授的年轻女科学家将获得该奖项的支持。PI将使用理论模型来计算电场的电感分量。电磁场的知识是需要准确地模拟加速过程和内磁层内的等离子体的运输。这种方法将适用于几个预选的真实的事件的案例研究，以及简化和理想化的输入模拟。 前一条路径将允许详细的数据模型比较，以确定哪个物理过程主导磁层的动态。 后一条路径将提供对各种太阳风参数的系统影响的深入了解。关于电势与感应电场在增强热离子数方面的相对贡献的知识，将用于研究宏观尺度动力学与控制该区域的微观尺度过程之间的联系，并巩固对控制磁层动力学的物理过程的理解。

One of the major questions in magnetospheric physics is the issue of how the typical energy of solar wind and ionospheric particles becomes accelerated from energies in the range of a few eVs to energies of hundreds of keVs that are typically observed in the near Earth space. The need for this acceleration to occur implies the production within the magnetosphere of a potential that is applied to the particles moving along the geomagnetic flux tube. The challenging task in modeling this potential lies in producing an estimate of the inductive effects arising from the presence of a time-dependent magnetic field as compared with the potential that is a part of the plasma convection process across the geotail. The extent of this partition remains an unresolved question in geospace research. This award would model the physics of this acceleration mechanism to determine the magnitude of the inductive electric field caused by the temporal variation of the magnetic field as compared with the magnitude of the potential electric field source. The award will have the consequence that the relative contributions of potential and inductive electric field driven convection resulting in the development of the storm time ring current will for certain cases become quantified. A young woman scientist just beginning her faculty appointment as an assistant professor will be supported with this award.The PI would use a theoretical model to calculate the inductive component of the electric field. Knowledge of the electromagnetic fields is required to model accurately the acceleration processes and the transport of plasma within the inner magnetosphere. This approach would be applied to several preselected real event case studies as well as simplified and idealized input simulations. The former path would allow detailed data-model comparisons to determine which physical process dominates the dynamics of the magnetosphere. The latter path would provide insight into the systematic influences of various solar wind parameters. Knowledge of the relative contribution of potential versus inductive electric fields at intensifying the hot ion population would be used to study the connection between the macro-scale dynamics and micro-scale processes that govern this region and solidify comprehension of the physical processes controlling magnetosphere dynamics.