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A Simulation Study of the Relationship Between Tail Dynamics and the Aurora

  • Conference paper
Magnetospheric Plasma Physics: The Impact of Jim Dungey’s Research

Part of the book series: Astrophysics and Space Science Proceedings ((ASSSP,volume 41))

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Abstract

The Earth’s magnetotail goes through large scale changes during geomagnetically disturbed times that result in the earthward propagation of dipolarization events in the magnetotail containing highly energetic particles and a heightened electron precipitation into the ionosphere. During the 11 March 2008 substorm, earthward-propagating dipolarization fronts were observed by THEMIS spacecraft in the near-Earth magnetotail plasma sheet, and auroral brightening was observed by all-sky cameras at high northern latitudes around 70° in the pre-midnight sector. Using large-scale kinetic simulations along with spacecraft and ground-based observations, the properties (location, flux, energy, etc.) of precipitating particles were determined. We find that ~keV electrons in the region modeled by the simulation precipitate into the pre-midnight sector between about 68° and 72° due to two different physical mechanisms. Precipitation at higher latitudes is due to non-adiabatic pitch angle scattering that occurs at about 20–25 RE down tail, eastward of the reconnection region. The lower latitude precipitation is due to Fermi acceleration, which causes adiabatic electrons to enter the loss cone closer to the Earth, 10–15 RE downtail of the dipolarization front. The location, timing, and energy of electrons precipitating via these two mechanisms are in good agreement with all-sky camera images of auroral brightening observed at substorm onset.

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Acknowledgements

This paper is in celebration of Jim Dungey’s 90th birthday. He was my graduate thesis advisor and an inspiration to all of us. His incredible ability to gain fundamental physical insight based on limited information and pure intellectual fire power set a standard that cannot be matched. This research was performed in collaboration with R. Walker, D. Schriver, M. El-Alaoui, and R. Richard. I gratefully acknowledge their contributions. I thank J. Berchem for supplying the global MHD results for a southward IMF, and E. Donovan for supplying the auroral images from the All-Sky Imager array. Research at UCLA was supported by the NASA Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) Interdisciplinary Science Program grant NNX08AO48G and NASA Geospace grant NNX12AD13G. I acknowledge the use of data from the THEMIS Mission. Computing was carried out on NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) including Columbia and Pleiades machines and XSEDE machines at San Diego.

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  1. Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Maha Ashour-Abdalla

  2. Department of Physics and Astronomy, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Maha Ashour-Abdalla

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  1. Maha Ashour-Abdalla
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Correspondence to Maha Ashour-Abdalla .

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  1. Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Leicester, Leicester, United Kingdom

    Stanley W. H. Cowley FRS

  2. Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom

    David Southwood

  3. St. Edmund's College, Cambridge, United Kingdom

    Simon Mitton

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Ashour-Abdalla, M. (2015). A Simulation Study of the Relationship Between Tail Dynamics and the Aurora. In: Cowley FRS, S., Southwood, D., Mitton, S. (eds) Magnetospheric Plasma Physics: The Impact of Jim Dungey’s Research. Astrophysics and Space Science Proceedings, vol 41. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-18359-6_5

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