Geospace Plume and Its Impact on Dayside Magnetopause Reconnection Rate
Name
JGR Space Physics - 2021 - Zou - Geospace Plume and Its Impact on Dayside Magnetopause Reconnection Rate.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
7.17 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
05385927c722d87b79c5902b1feb6320
Author(s)
Zou, Ying
Walsh, Brian M
Shi, Xueling
Lyons, Larry
Liu, Jiang
Angelopoulos, Vassilis
Ruohoniemi, John M
Coster, Anthea J
Henderson, Michael G
Date Issued
May 21, 2021
Journal
Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics
Publisher
American Geophysical Union
Citation
Zou, Y., Walsh, B. M., Shi, X., Lyons, L., Liu, J., Angelopoulos, V., et al. (2021). Geospace plume and its impact on dayside magnetopause reconnection rate. Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, 126, e2021JA029117.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
The role a geospace plume in influencing the efficiency of magnetopause reconnection is an open question with two contrasting theories being debated. A local-control theory suggests that a plume decreases both local and global reconnection rates, whereas a global-control theory argues that the global reconnection rate is controlled by the solar wind rather than local physics. Observationally, limited numbers of point measurements from spacecraft cannot reveal whether a local change affects the global reconnection. A distributed observatory is hence needed to assess the validity of the two theories. We use THEMIS and Los Alamos National Laboratory spacecraft to identify the occurrence of a geospace plume and its contact with the magnetopause. Global evolution and morphology of the plume is traced using GPS measurements. SuperDARN is then used to monitor the distribution and the strength of dayside reconnection. Two storm-time geospace plume events are examined and show that as the plume contacts the magnetopause, the efficiency of reconnection decreases at the contact longitude. The amount of local decrease is 81% and 68% for the two events, and both values are consistent with the mass loading effect of the plume if the plume's atomic mass is ∼4 amu. Reconnection in the surrounding is enhanced, and when the solar wind driving is stable, little variation is seen in the cross polar cap potential. This study illuminates a pathway to resolve the role of cold dense plasma on solar wind-magnetosphere coupling, and the observations suggest that plumes redistribute magnetopause reconnection activity without changing the global strength substantially
MIT Department
Haystack Observatory
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1029/2021ja029117
