After a brief review of magnetospheric and interplanetary phenomena for intervals with enhanced solar wind-magnetosphere interaction, an attempt is made to define a geomagnetic storm as an interval of time when a sufficiently intense and long-lasting interplanetary convection electric field leads, through a substantial energization in the magnetosphere-ionosphere system, to an intensified ring current sufficiently strong to exceed some key threshold of the quantifying storm time Dst index. The associated storm/substorm relationship problem is also reviewed. Although the physics of this relationship does not seem to be fully understood at this time, basic and fairly well established mechanisms of this relationship are presented and discussed. Finally, toward the advancement of geomagnetic storm research, some recommendations are given concerning future improvements in monitoring existing geomagnetic indices as well as the solar wind near Earth.

/pdf/what-is-a-geomagnetic-storm-28nleury90.pdf

What is a geomagnetic storm

Pulsar surveys offer a rare opportunity to monitor the radio sky for impulsive burst-like events with millisecond durations. We analyzed archival survey data and found a 30-jansky dispersed burst, less than 5 milliseconds in duration, located 3 degrees from the Small Magellanic Cloud. The burst properties argue against a physical association with our Galaxy or the Small Magellanic Cloud. Current models for the free electron content in the universe imply that the burst is less than 1 gigaparsec distant. No further bursts were seen in 90 hours of additional observations, which implies that it was a singular event such as a supernova or coalescence of relativistic objects. Hundreds of similar events could occur every day and, if detected, could serve as cosmological probes.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/318/5851/777.full.pdf

A Bright Millisecond Radio Burst of Extragalactic Origin

The Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms (THEMIS) mission is the fifth NASA Medium-class Explorer (MIDEX), launched on February 17, 2007 to determine the trigger and large-scale evolution of substorms. The mission employs five identical micro-satellites (hereafter termed “probes”) which line up along the Earth’s magnetotail to track the motion of particles, plasma and waves from one point to another and for the first time resolve space–time ambiguities in key regions of the magnetosphere on a global scale. The probes are equipped with comprehensive in-situ particles and fields instruments that measure the thermal and super-thermal ions and electrons, and electromagnetic fields from DC to beyond the electron cyclotron frequency in the regions of interest. The primary goal of THEMIS, which drove the mission design, is to elucidate which magnetotail process is responsible for substorm onset at the region where substorm auroras map (∼10 RE): (i) a local disruption of the plasma sheet current (current disruption) or (ii) the interaction of the current sheet with the rapid influx of plasma emanating from reconnection at ∼25 RE. However, the probes also traverse the radiation belts and the dayside magnetosphere, allowing THEMIS to address additional baseline objectives, namely: how the radiation belts are energized on time scales of 2–4 hours during the recovery phase of storms, and how the pristine solar wind’s interaction with upstream beams, waves and the bow shock affects Sun–Earth coupling. THEMIS’s open data policy, platform-independent dataset, open-source analysis software, automated plotting and dissemination of data within hours of receipt, dedicated ground-based observatory network and strong links to ancillary space-based and ground-based programs. promote a grass-roots integration of relevant NASA, NSF and international assets in the context of an international Heliophysics Observatory over the next decade. The mission has demonstrated spacecraft and mission design strategies ideal for Constellation-class missions and its science is complementary to Cluster and MMS. THEMIS, the first NASA micro-satellite constellation, is a technological pathfinder for future Sun-Earth Connections missions and a stepping stone towards understanding Space Weather.

The THEMIS Mission

The magnetic field experiment on WIND will provide data for studies of a broad range of scales of structures and fluctuation characteristics of the interplanetary magnetic field throughout the mission, and, where appropriate, relate them to the statics and dynamics of the magnetosphere. The basic instrument of the Magnetic Field Investigation (MFI) is a boom-mounted dual triaxial fluxgate magnetometer and associated electronics. The dual configuration provides redundancy and also permits accurate removal of the dipolar portion of the spacecraft magnetic field. The instrument provides (1) near real-time data at nominally one vector per 92 s as key parameter data for broad dissemination, (2) rapid data at 10.9 vectors s−1 for standard analysis, and (3) occasionally, snapshot (SS) memory data and Fast Fourier Transform data (FFT), both based on 44 vectors s−1. These measurements will be precise (0.025%), accurate, ultra-sensitive (0.008 nT/step quantization), and where the sensor noise level is <0.006 nT r.m.s. for 0–10 Hz. The digital processing unit utilizes a 12-bit microprocessor controlled analogue-to-digital converter. The instrument features a very wide dynamic range of measurement capability, from ±4 nT up to ±65 536 nT per axis in eight discrete ranges. (The upper range permits complete testing in the Earth's field.) In the FTT mode power spectral density elements are transmitted to the ground as fast as once every 23 s (high rate), and 2.7 min of SS memory time series data, triggered automatically by pre-set command, requires typically about 5.1 hours for transmission. Standard data products are expected to be the following vector field averages: 0.0227-s (detail data from SS), 0.092 s (‘detail’ in standard mode), 3 s, 1 min, and 1 hour, in both GSE and GSM coordinates, as well as the FFT spectral elements. As has been our team's tradition, high instrument reliability is obtained by the use of fully redundant systems and extremely conservative designs. We plan studies of the solar wind: (1) as a collisionless plasma laboratory, at all time scales, macro, meso and micro, but concentrating on the kinetic scale, the highest time resolution of the instrument (=0.022 s), (2) as a consequence of solar energy and mass output, (3) as an external source of plasma that can couple mass, momentum, and energy to the Earth's magnetosphere, and (4) as it is modified as a consequence of its imbedded field interacting with the moon. Since the GEOTAIL Inboard Magnetometer (GIM), which is similar to the MFI instrument, was developed by members of our team, we provide a brief discussion of GIM related science objectives, along with MFI related science goals.

https://wind.nasa.gov/docs/MFI_Lepping_SSR1995.pdf

The WIND magnetic field investigation

The Geospace Environmental Modeling (GEM) Reconnection Challenge project is presented and the important results, which are presented in a series of companion papers, are summarized. Magnetic reconnection is studied in a simple Harris sheet configuration with a specified set of initial conditions, including a finite amplitude, magnetic island perturbation to trigger the dynamics. The evolution of the system is explored with a broad variety of codes, ranging from fully electromagnetic particle in cell (PIC) codes to conventional resistive magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) codes, and the results are compared. The goal is to identify the essential physics which is required to model collisionless magnetic reconnection. All models that include the Hall effect in the generalized Ohm's law produce essentially indistinguishable rates of reconnection, corresponding to nearly Alfvenic inflow velocities. Thus the rate of reconnection is insensitive to the specific mechanism which breaks the frozen-in condition, whether resistivity, electron inertia, or electron thermal motion. The reconnection rate in the conventional resistive MHD model, in contrast, is dramatically smaller unless a large localized or current dependent resistivity is used. The Hall term brings the dynamics of whistler waves into the system. The quadratic dispersion property of whistlers (higher phase speed at smaller spatial scales) is the key to understanding these results. The implications of these results for trying to model the global dynamics of the magnetosphere are discussed.

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/1999JA900449

Geospace Environmental Modeling (GEM) magnetic reconnection challenge

Using a 3D multispecies magnetohydrodynamic model, we investigated the effect of the solar wind dynamic pressure (Pd) with different densities and velocities on the subsolar standoff distance (r0) of the Martian magnetic pileup boundary (MPB). We fixed the solar maximum condition, the strongest crustal field located in the dayside region, and the Parker spiral interplanetary magnetic field at Mars. We simulated 35 cases with a Pd range of 0.1494 to 7.323 nPa (solar wind number density n ∈ [1, 9] cm−3, and solar wind velocity V ∈ [−258, −1344] km s−1). The main results are as follows. (1) r0 decreases with increasing Pd according to the power-law relations. For the same Pd, a higher solar wind velocity (lower density) results in a larger r0 of the Martian MPB. (2) A higher solar wind density leads to a lower ratio of the compressed magnetic field strength to the crustal field strength and a larger plasma β under the same Pd. This indicates that the thermal pressure at the Martian MPB plays a significant role for the compressed magnetic field. Because the magnetic pileup process is stronger for a higher solar wind velocity, the magnetic pressure at the Martian MPB is increased. As a result, the thermal pressure decreases and r0 of the Martian MPB increases. (3) We present a new formula of r0 with the parameters of the solar wind dynamic pressure, number density, and velocity.

Effect of solar wind density and velocity on the subsolar standoff distance of the Martian magnetic pileup boundary

When the interplanetary magnetic field turns southward, dayside reconnection leads to an increase of open magnetic flux and an increase of the electric potential drop across the polar cap. The enhanced electrostatic field in the ionosphere can be mapped to the closed field region of magnetotail, contributing to a dawn-to-dusk electrostatic component of electric field in the plasma sheet. In the presence of this driving electric field, an adiabatic evolution of the plasma sheet is formulated in A-space, where A is the magnetic flux function. It is found that the adiabatic evolution leads to the observed enhancement of the entropy content in the near-earth plasma sheet and to a tailward stretching of geomagnetic field lines. As a result, the cross-tail current in the near-earth plasma sheet is strongly enhanced.

Tailward stretching of geomagnetic field lines in the presence of an enhanced ionospheric convection electric field

Scintillation theory is invoked to explain fluctuations in radio intensity observed during occultation of the extragalactic radio source PKS 2025-15 by the plasma tail of comet 1973 XII on Jan. 5, 1975. Plasma irregularities and turbulence in the tail of the comet (Kohoutek 1973f) are fitted to a Gaussian spectrum and to a Kolmogorov power-law spectrum in analyzing the scintillation data. The rms fluctuation of electron density in the cometary tail is reported at 80 electrons per cu mm, the inner scale of the fluctuation at 800 km, and the largest scale of fluctuation at possibly 400,000 km. A hump in the comet power-law spectrum is noted. Use of the power spectrum of electron density fluctuations to predict the power spectrum of magnetic field fluctuations for irregularities associated with hydromagnetic turbulence is recommended.

/pdf/plasma-irregularities-in-the-comet-s-tail-3k6ap3jjtu.pdf

Plasma irregularities in the comet's tail

The evolution of an initial current sheet is studied by using the set of one-dimensional (1D) magnetohydrodynamic equations. In a simulation of the 1D Riemann problem along the z direction, the initial magnetic field is chosen as B(z)=−Bx0tanh(z∕δ)x+Byy+Bzz, where Bx0 denotes the antiparallel component and By is called the guide field of current sheet. For the By=0 case, a pair of slow shocks is formed and propagates away from the current sheet. For By≠0 (even for a very small By), it is found that a pair of slow shocks and an additional pair of time-dependent intermediate shocks (TDISs) are formed. TDISs are not present in the By=0 case, indicating that the case with By=0 is a singular case. In this paper, an attempt is made to reconcile the By=0 case with small nonzero By cases by examining the early time evolution of TDISs and slow shocks. The early current evolutions for the By=0 case and for small By cases are found to be very similar. For By≠0 cases, the plasma density and pressure are found to i...

Effects of a guide field on the evolution of a current sheet

A scenario is proposed to explain the preferential heating of minor ions and differential-streaming velocity between minor ions and protons observed in the solar corona and in the solar wind. It is demonstrated by test-particle simulations that minor ions can be nearly fully picked up by intrinsic Alfven-cyclotron waves observed in the solar wind based on the observed wave energy density. Both high-frequency ion-cyclotron waves and low-frequency Alfven waves play crucial roles in the pickup process. A minor ion can first gain a high magnetic moment through the resonant wave–particle interaction with ion-cyclotron waves, and then this ion with a large magnetic moment can be trapped by magnetic mirror-like field structures in the presence of the low-frequency Alfven waves. As a result, the ion is picked up by these Alfven-cyclotron waves. However, minor ions can only be partially picked up in the corona because of the low wave energy density and low plasma β. During the pickup process, minor ions are stochastically heated and accelerated by Alfven-cyclotron waves so that they are hotter and flow faster than protons. The compound effect of Alfven waves and ion-cyclotron waves is important in the heating and acceleration of minor ions. The kinetic properties of minor ions from simulation results are generally consistent with in-situ and remote features observed in the solar wind and solar corona.

/pdf/compound-effect-of-alfven-waves-and-ion-cyclotron-waves-on-2b11gnh7rk.pdf

Lou-Chuang Lee

Papers

Effect of solar wind density and velocity on the subsolar standoff distance of the Martian magnetic pileup boundary

Tailward stretching of geomagnetic field lines in the presence of an enhanced ionospheric convection electric field

Plasma irregularities in the comet's tail

Effects of a guide field on the evolution of a current sheet

Compound Effect of Alfvén Waves and Ion-Cyclotron Waves on Heating/Acceleration of Minor Ions via the Pickup Process