R. W. McEntire

Comprehensive study of the magnetospheric response to a hot flow anomaly

We present a comprehensive observational study of the magnetospheric response to an interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) tangential discontinuity, which first struck the postnoon bow shock and magnetopause and then swept past the prenoon bow shock and magnetopause on July 24, 1996. Although unaccompanied by any significant plasma variation, the discontinuity interacted with the bow shock to form a hot flow anomaly (HFA), which was observed by Interball-1 just upstream from the prenoon bow shock. Pressures within and Earthward of the HFA were depressed by an order of magnitude, which allowed the magnetopause to briefly (∼7 min) move outward some 5 RE beyond its nominal position and engulf Interball-1. A timing study employing nearby Interball-1 and Magion-4 observations demonstrates that this motion corresponded to an antisunward and northward moving wave on the magnetopause. The same wave then engulfed Geotail, which was nominally located downstream in the outer dawn magnetosheath. Despite its large amplitude, the wave produced only minor effects in GOES-8 geosynchronous observations near local dawn. n nPolar Ultraviolet Imager (UVI) observed a sudden brightening of the afternoon aurora, followed by an even more intense transient brightening of the morning aurora. Consistent with this asymmetry, the discontinuity produced only weak near-simultaneous perturbations in high-latitude postnoon ground magnetometers but a transient convection vortex in the prenoon Greenland ground magnetograms. The results of this study indicate that the solar wind interaction with the bow shock is far more dynamic than previously imagined and far more significant to the solar wind-magnetosphere interaction.

Storm-like dynamics of Jupiter's inner and middle magnetosphere

The discovery of energy-time dispersed, charged particle signatures of dynamic, longitudinally confined charged particle injections within Jupiters inner magnetosphere has been reported previously as measured in >20-keV particle intensities by the Galileo energetic particles detector (EPD). While these events have similarities to so-called substorm injections observed within the Earths magnetosphere, it is unknown whether the driving mechanisms are similar. Over 100 Jovian injection events have now been documented between radial distances of ∼9 RJ (the inner boundary of most of the observations) and 27 RJ Injections occur at all System III longitudes and local time positions. Similar to Earth magnetospheric injections, the Jovian injections occur throughout the broad radial region of transition between the quasi-dipolar and neutral sheet magnetic field configurations, and where the charged particle energy densities are competitive with the magnetic energy densities. The Jovian injections can be clustered in time, analogous to what often happens during well-known magnetic storms that occur in the Earths magnetosphere. During one particular periapsis of Galileos orbital trajectory, the magnetosphere was observed by EPD to become suddenly very disturbed with multiple injections following a prolonged period (>24 Earth hours) of relative quiescence. Because of the prestorm coincidence of a signature of an apparent Earth-like global magnetospheric disturbance, we hypothesize that this Jovian storm occurred when the inner and middle magnetosphere were triggered out of marginal stability by the passage of a magnetohydrodynamic fast mode wave launched at the magnetopause by a pressure variation in the interplanetary (solar wind) environment.

Ion composition of the near-Earth plasma sheet in storm and quiet intervals: Geotail/EPIC measurements

We investigate the ion composition of the near-Earth plasma sheet in storm and quiet intervals, using energetic (9-210 keV) particle flux data obtained by the suprathermal ion composition spectrometer (STICS) sensor of the energetic particle and ion composition (EPIC) instrument on the Geotail spacecraft. In 1998 four magnetic storms (minimum Dst -20 nT. The energy density of the H + , He + , and O + ions was computed from the EPIC/STICS data for these storm and quiet-time events. We obtained the following results: (1) The energy density is higher during storms than during quiet times for all ion species (H + , He + , and O + ); (2) the He + /H + energy density ratio during storms is 0.01-0.02, while that during quiet times is ∼0.01; and (3) the O + /H + energy density ratio is significantly larger during storms (0.2-0.6) than during quiet times (0.05-0.1). To explain these results we suggested a current sheet acceleration mechanism in which ions are energized by the dawn-to-dusk convection electric field in a mass-dependent way in the course of interaction with the current sheet.

First Composition Measurements of Energetic Neutral Atoms

Energetic neutral atoms (ENAs) were detected by the Energetic Particles and Ion Composition (EPIC) instrument on the Geotail spacecraft during a magnetic storm on October 29–30, 1994. The energetic particles could be identified as neutrals because the direction of the particle flux steadily tracked the direction of the Earth and was uncorrelated with the changing orientation of the ambient magnetic field as the spacecraft viewed the dayside magnetosphere for ∼16 hours. These observations provide the first composition measurements of ENAs, yielding the storm-time evolution of ENA fluxes of hydrogen, helium, and oxygen separately as well as their energy spectra. ENA fluxes and the rate of recovery of Dst are both roughly steady, consistent with charge exchange being a significant energy loss process for the storm-time ring current. For total energies above 200 keV, the intensity of ENA oxygen is the highest, followed by hydrogen, and then by helium. These observations enable us to deduce the line-of-sight (LOS) integrals of the products nHjion and nHfion, where nH=hydrogen geocorona density, jion=differential ion flux, and fion=phase space density (PSD), for ion species H+, He+ and O+ at energies between ∼60 and ∼600 keV. A ∼50–60 keV Maxwellian fits the O+ LOS PSD fairly well but fits the He+ and the H+ only poorly.

Energetic ion distributions on both sides of the Earth's magnetopause

The AMPTE/CCE spacecraft, with an apogee of ∼8.8RE and an inclination of ∼4.3°, sampled the outer dayside equatorial magnetosphere for extended time periods and often crossed into the magnetosheath whenever the solar wind pressure was sufficiently high to compress the magnetopause to 10 keV and an earthward gradient in the subsolar magnetosheath. In addition to the steady state magnetosheath population there exists a burst-type component indicative of a magnetospheric source, and most of the time this is recognized as a flux transfer event. Overall, the results about the origin of the ≥50 keV magnetosheath ions are consistent with the continuous leakage of magnetospheric particles across a tangential discontinuity magnetopause, locally distributed according to magnetospheric drift paths. Magnetic reconnection, although present, should not be a dominant source on average, because it is not continuous in time. Fermi acceleration should not be dominant because it predicts the opposite local time asymmetry, and shock drift acceleration should be a minor contributor at E≥50 keV because of upper-energy cutoff limitations. Our observations also indicate a significant magnetospheric contribution to energies as low as ∼10 keV, where the magnetosphere-magnetosheath intensity gradient reverses. However, in order to examine the relative strength and local time distribution of all possible sources at these energies, a detailed analysis is required.

Energetic particle observations near Ganymede

This paper combines data from the Galileo spacecraft plasma and energetic particle instruments. Data are included from two Ganymede flybys when the spacecraft was at northern Ganymede latitudes. Electron intensities from the two instruments are in very good agreement. Fits to 60 electron energy spectra are presented. We find the power of precipitating 0.5–3.0 keV electrons into both polar caps of Ganymede is ∼3 × 109 W. By assuming the instruments are intercalibrated, we infer that sulfur dominates the ion intensities at least in the tens of keV energy range. Furthermore, fits to the ion data indicate that the intensities are dominated by heavy ions below about 100 keV. Fits to these data are also used to estimate the sputtering rate of Ganymedes icy surface. It is found that ∼2 × 1026 water molecules/s are sputtered from Ganymedes polar caps which, when not redeposited on the surface, give an erosion rate of ∼8 m/Gyr.

Change of energetic ion composition in the plasma sheet during substorms

It has been reported by previous studies that the energetic particle flux of ions of ionospheric origin like O+ ions is more enhanced than that of H+ ions in the near-Earth tail (X ∼ −6 to −16 RE) during substorms. To explain this strong O+ flux enhancement, some studies have surmised that thermal O+ ions in the plasma sheet boundary layer or the lobe are strongly accelerated at the magnetic reconnection region (X ∼ −20 to −30 RE), and are subsequently transported into the near-Earth plasma sheet with earthward plasma flows. However, other studies have supposed that the strong O+ flux enhancement is caused by local magnetic field reconfiguration (local dipolarization). In the present study, we used Geotail/EPIC measurements of energetic (60 keV to 3.6 MeV) ion flux to test the above two scenarios. We investigated ion composition in the plasma sheet while earthward plasma flows and/or dipolarization signatures were observed. In terms of energy density ratio of oxygen ions to protons, the observational results can be summarized as follows: (1) earthward plasma flows without dipolarization signatures did not accompany large increases of the ratio in most cases; (2) when earthward plasma flows appeared with dipolarization signatures, they accompanied increases of the ratio; and (3) most of dipolarization events were associated with large increases of the ratio. These results suggest that the strong increase in the energetic oxygen constituent in the near-Earth plasma sheet is due to acceleration of ions during dipolarization, consistent with the latter scenario.

Low-charge-state heavy ions upstream of Earth's bow shock and sunward flux of ionospheric O+1, N+1, and O+2 ions: Geotail observations

Energetic ∼10–210 keV/e low-charge-state heavy ions (LCSHI) were measured sunward of Earths bow shock (to X ∼ 30 RE) during numerous intervals lasting from minutes to hours using Geotail/STICS in 1995–1998. LCSHI fluxes are strong and continuous in a few tens of intervals, during which a strong component of ionospheric origin O+1, N+1, and O+2 streams sunward on nearly radial IMF. Most often though only ‘trace’ levels are present. LCSHI flux is typically, but not exclusively, observed during diffuse upstream ion events. LCSHI are accompanied by sunward energetic electron bursts in three of the four cases shown and twice by enhanced IMF fluctuations. As O+1 streams sunward in the spacecraft frame during the strongest case, H+, He+2, He+1, and O+6 fluxes have weak anisotropies and the H+ energy spectrum is kappa-like. The strongest LCSHI fluxes tend to occur duskward of local noon during disturbed geomagnetic conditions. On average, LCSHI flux is more uniformly distributed across the dayside.

Simultaneous observation of the poleward expansion of substorm electrojet activity and the tailward expansion of current sheet disruption in the near-Earth magnetotail

In this paper we present observations of a substorm that occurred on June 7, 1985. The data consist of energetic ion and magnetic field data from AMPTE/CCE, magnetometer data from the ground stations of the EISCAT magnetometer cross, STARE radar data, and Pi 1 data from Sodankyla. CCE was in the Finnish local time sector, and the model field line threading CCE came down near the center of the EISCAT magnetometer cross. Furthermore, CCE was located near the neutral sheet and observed the disruption of the cross-tail current in situ. At 2209 UT, Sodankyla registered a Pi 1 burst and the EISCAT stations recorded the onset of a negative bay. Simultaneously, CCE observed the onset of current sheet disruption and ion energization. The energetic ions observed during this initial burst had gyrocenters earthward of CCE. An intensification of activity occurred at 2212 UT, and it was observed essentially simultaneously on the ground and in space. It consisted of an intensification of Pi 1 activity, an intensification of the westward electrojet poleward of the initial breakup latitude (as determined from magnetometer and radar data), and magnetic turbulence and a burst of energetic ions at CCE in the magnetotail. Significantly, this second burst was composed only of ions with gyrocenters tailward of the satellite, and the magnetic turbulence was considerably weaker than that observed during the initial current disruption. This strongly suggests that the current disruption region had moved tailward of CCE. The event provides a direct observational link between the tailward expansion of active regions in the near-Earth magnetotail and the poleward expansion of ionospheric electrojet activity during substorms.

Galileo‐measured depletion of near‐Io hot ring current plasmas since the Voyager epoch

The first mass-discriminated, hot ion distribution moments (pressure, energy intensity) are determined for hot >50-keV ions in Jupiters inner magnetosphere at the outer edge of Ios plasma torus by using the Galileo energetic particle detector (EPD) data. These hot plasmas were significantly depleted during the Galileo encounter in 1995 as compared with the Voyager epoch of 1979. The depletion of the hot ions is apparently caused by enhanced charge exchange losses of hot ions, perhaps associated with enhanced emissions of neutral gases from the volcanoes of Io. Such neutral gas enhancements could simultaneously explain increases, reported elsewhere, in the densities of the cooler Io torus plasmas. The hot plasma changes may explain why radial transport interchange turbulence has been observed by Galileo in the Io torus regions, whereas such turbulence was not apparent during the Voyager encounters in 1979. The hot ion depletion could also play a role in explaining the apparent differences between the Jovian auroral configuration observed in recent years by the Hubble space telescope and ground observers and the configuration observed by Voyager. This possibility is much less certain, however.