[1] Magnetospheric substorms are elemental processes of solar wind energy storage and explosive release in Earth's magnetosphere. They encompass fundamental plasma physics questions, are ubiquitous during all types of geomagnetic conditions, contribute significantly to magnetic storms, and are a key element of Space Weather applications. This paper reviews recent major advances enabled by modern multi-point space-based and ground-based platforms. These datasets have also empowered a system-wide perspective and advanced modeling. We particularly highlight progress in two areas: (1) substorm onset timing and evidence for current sheet preconditioning and destabilization and (2) fast flows and dipolarizations, including the role of entropy in magnetotail plasma propagation.

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/2012GL050859

Recent advances in understanding substorm dynamics

[1] Using magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations of magnetotail dynamics, we investigate the build-up and evolution of the substorm current wedge (SCW) and its association with plasma flows from the tail. Three different scenarios are considered: the propagation of magnetic flux ropes of artificially reduced entropy (bubbles), and the formation and propagation of bubbles resulting from magnetic reconnection in the near and far tail. The simulations confirm the important role of the entropy reduction in the earthward penetration of bubbles, as well as in the build-up of field-aligned current signatures attributed to the SCW. Low-entropy flow channels can indeed propagate close to the Earth from the distant tail, as suggested recently. However, this requires substantial entropy reduction, presumably from progression of reconnection into the lobes. The major SCW and pressure build-up occurred when the low-entropy flow channels were braked and the flow diverted azimuthally in the near-Earth region. The flows commonly exhibit multiple narrow channels, separated in space and time, whereas the associated increases in Bz (dipolarization) accumulate over a wider spatial range, spreading both azimuthally and radially. This suggests a picture of the SCW as being composed of multiple smaller “wedgelets,” rather than one big wedge.

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/jgra.50187

The substorm current wedge in MHD simulations

Dynamics of the near-Earth magnetotail associated with substorms during a period of extended southward interplanetary magnetic field is studied using a three-dimensional (3-D) global hybrid simulation model that includes both the dayside and nightside magnetosphere, for the first time, with physics from the ion kinetic to the global Alfvenic convection scales. It is found that the dayside reconnection leads to the penetration of the dawn-dusk electric field through the magnetopause and thus a thinning of the plasma sheet, followed by the magnetotail reconnection with 3-D, multiple flux ropes. Ion kinetic physics is found to play important roles in the magnetotail dynamics, which leads to the following results: (1) Hall electric fields in the thin current layer cause a systematic dawnward ion drift motion and thus a dawn-dusk asymmetry of the plasma sheet with a higher (lower) density on the dawnside (duskside). Correspondingly, more reconnection occurs on the duskside. Bidirectional fast ions are generated due to acceleration in reconnection, and more high-speed earthward flow injections are found on the duskside than the dawnside. Such finding of the dawn-dusk asymmetry is consistent with recent satellite observations. (2) The injected ions undergo the magnetic gradient and curvature drift in the dipole-like field, forming a ring current. (3) Ion particle distributions reveal multiple populations/beams at various distances in the tail. (4) Dipolarization of the tail magnetic field takes place due to the pileup of the injected magnetic fluxes and thermal pressure of injected ions, where the fast earthward flow is stopped. Oscillation of the dipolarization front is developed at the fast-flow braking, predominantly on the dawnside. (5) Kinetic compressional wave turbulence is present around the dipolarization front. The cross-tail currents break into small-scale structures with k⟂ρi∼1, where k⟂ is the perpendicular wave number. A sharp dip of magnetic field strength is seen just in front of the sharp rise of the magnetic field at the dipolarization front, mainly on the duskside. (6) A shear flow-type instability is found on the duskside flank of the ring current plasma, whereas a kinetic ballooning instability appears on the dawnside. (7) Shear Alfven waves and compressional waves are generated from the tail reconnection, and they evolve into kinetic Alfven waves in the dipole-like field region. Correspondingly, multiple field-aligned current filaments are generated above the auroral ionosphere.

Investigation of storm time magnetotail and ion injection using three-dimensional global hybrid simulation

A key process in the interaction of magnetospheres with the solar wind is the explosive release of energy stored in the magnetotail. Based on observational evidence, magnetic reconnection is widely believed to be responsible. However, the very possibility of spontaneous reconnection in collisionless magnetotail plasmas has been questioned in kinetic theory for more than three decades. In addition, in situ observations by multispacecraft missions (e.g., THEMIS) reveal the development of buoyancy and flapping motions coexisting with reconnection. Never before have kinetic simulations reproduced all three primary modes in realistic 2-D configurations with a finite normal magnetic field. Moreover, 3-D simulations with closed boundaries suggest that the tail activity is dominated by buoyancy-driven instabilities, whereas reconnection is a secondary effect strongly localized in the dawn-dusk direction. In this paper, we use massively parallel 3-D fully kinetic simulations with open boundaries to show that sufficiently far from the planet explosive processes in the tail are dominated by reconnection motions. These motions occur in the form of spontaneously generated dipolarization fronts accompanied by changes in magnetic topology which extend in the dawn-dusk direction over the size of the simulation box, suggesting that reconnection onset causes a macroscale reconfiguration of the real magnetotail. In our simulations, buoyancy and flapping motions significantly disturb the primary dipolarization front but neither destroy it nor change the near 2-D picture of the front evolution critically. Consistent with recent multiprobe observations, dipolarization fronts are also found to be the main regions of energy conversion in the magnetotail.

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/2014JA020205

Magnetic reconnection, buoyancy, and flapping motions in magnetotail explosions

Spacecraft observations have established that all known planets with an internal magnetic field, as part of their interaction with the solar wind, possess well-developed magnetic tails, stretching vast distances on the nightside of the planets. In this review paper we focus on the magnetotails of Mercury, Earth, Jupiter and Saturn, four planets which possess well-developed tails and which have been visited by several spacecraft over the years. The fundamental physical processes of reconnection, convection, and charged particle acceleration are common to the magnetic tails of Mercury, Earth, Jupiter and Saturn. The great differences in solar wind conditions, planetary rotation rates, internal plasma sources, ionospheric properties, and physical dimensions from Mercury’s small magnetosphere to the giant magnetospheres of Jupiter and Saturn provide an outstanding opportunity to extend our understanding of the influence of such factors on basic processes. In this review article, we study the four planetary environments of Mercury, Earth, Jupiter and Saturn, comparing their common features and contrasting their unique dynamics.

Large-scale structure and dynamics of the magnetotails of Mercury, Earth, Jupiter and Saturn

Angelopoulos et al. (Research Articles, 15 August 2008, p. 931) reported that magnetic reconnection in Earth’s magnetotail triggered the onset of a magnetospheric substorm. We provide evidence that (i) near-Earth current disruption, occurring before the conventional tail reconnection signatures, triggered the onset; (ii) the observed auroral intensification and tail reconnection are not causally linked; and (iii) the onset they identified is a continuation of earlier substorm activities.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/324/5933/1391.2.full.pdf

A. T. Y. Lui

Papers

Comment on “Tail Reconnection Triggering Substorm Onset”