FG: Magnetotail Dipolarization and Its Effects on the Inner Magnetosphere

Focus Group Chairs

Christine Gabrielse -- The Aerospace Corporation ----------- contact: christine.gabrielse at aero.org
Matina Gkioulidou --- John Hopkins Applied Physics Lab
Drew Turner ---------- John Hopkins Applied Physics Lab
Slava Merkin --------- John Hopkins Applied Physics Lab
David Malaspina ----- LASP, University of Colorado

Focus Group Science Topic

The overarching goal of this focus group is to utilize both in situ and ground-based observations alongside state-of-the-art models and theory to better incorporate magnetotail dipolarizations in global stand-alone and coupled magnetospheric models, refining our conceptual models of this phenomenon and examining its impacts on the inner magnetosphere.

In our pursuit of that goal, we plan to work with the community in formulating and investigating science questions that pertain to this focus group topic and its overarching goal, some examples of which include:

1. What are the mechanisms responsible for both elementary and global magnetotail dipolarizations and are they captured by current state-of-the-art models?
2. What is the role of reconnection and/or other plasma instabilities in producing elementary magnetotail dipolarizations?
3. What is the relationship, if any exists, between elementary magnetotail dipolarizations and more global dipolarization during substorms?
4. What is the role of elementary magnetotail dipolarizations in:
   • enhancements of the ring current?
   • creating the seed electron population for the radiation belts?
   • the generation of different wave modes (e.g., ULF, chorus, hiss, EMIC, equatorial noise, etc.) in the inner magnetosphere?

For full FG proposal CLICK HERE.

Resulting Papers

If you wrote a paper that was in part thanks to or related to this Focus Group, please let us know and we will add it to the list.

1. Stephens, G. K., Sitnov, M. I., Korth, H., Tsyganenko, N. A., Ohtani, S., Gkioulidou, M., & Ukhorskiy, A. Y. (Jan 2019). Global empirical picture of magnetospheric substorms inferred from multimission magnetometer data. Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, 124. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018JA025843
2. Sitnov, M., Birn, J., Ferdousi, B., Gordeev, E., Khotyaintsev, Y., Merkin, V., Motoba, M., Otto, A., Panov, E., Pritchett, P., Pucci, F., Raeder, J., Runov, A., Sergeev, V., Velli, M. & Zhou, X. (June 2019). Explosive Magnetotail Activity. Space Science Reviews, 215(4), 31. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-019-0599-5.
3. Birn, J., Liu, J., Runov, A., Kepko, L.,& Angelopoulos, V. (July 2019). On the contribution of dipolarizing flux bundles to the substorm current wedge and to flux and energy transport. Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics,124,5408–5420. https://doi.org/10.1029/2019JA026658.
4. Gabrielse, C., Spanswick, E., Artemyev, A., Nishimura, Y., Runov, A., Lyons, L., et al. (July 2019). Utilizing the Heliophysics/Geospace System Observatory to understand particle injections: Their scale sizes and propagation directions. Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, 124, 5584–5609. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018JA025588
5. Sitnov, M. I., Stephens, G. K., Tsyganenko, N. A., Miyashita, Y., Merkin, V. G., Motoba, T., Ohtani, S. & Genestreti, K. (Oct 2019). Signatures of nonideal plasma evolution during substorms obtained by mining multimission magnetometer data. Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, 124. https://doi.org/10.1029/2019JA027037
6. Ohtani, S. (Oct 2019). Substorm energy transport from the magnetotail to the nightside ionosphere. Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, 124, 8669–8684. https://doi.org/10.1029/2019JA026964
7. Merkin, V. G., Panov, E. V., Sorathia, K., & Ukhorskiy, A. Y. (Oct 2019). Contribution of bursty bulk flows to the global dipolarization of the magnetotail during an isolated substorm. Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, 124, 8647-8668. https://doi.org/10.1029/2019JA026872
8. McPherron, R.L., M. El-Alaoui, R.J. Walker, T. Nishimura, and J.M. Weygand (2019), The Relation of N-S Auroral Streamers to Auroral Expansion, Journal of Geophysical Research - Space Physics, Under Review.
9. McPherron, R.L., M. El-Alaoui, R.J. Walker, and R. Richard (2020), Characteristics of Reconnection Sites and Fast Flow Channels in an MHD Simulation, J. Geophys. Res. - Space Physics, submitted (December 6, 2019).