Abstract Magnetic Flux Transfer Events (FTE's) at the Magnetopause are expected to play an important role in the interaction between solar wind and magnetospheric plasma. Among a large number of observational signatures, typical properties of FTE's in the magnetosheath are the intermittent appearance of a particle population of hot plasma and a bipolar variation of the magnetic field component normal to the magnetopause. This led to the interpretation that FTE's might be the result of localized magnetic reconnection which allows for energetic magnetospheric particles to enter the magnetosheath. In the framework of resistive MHD computations we investigate a three-dimensional magnetic reconnection process which is caused by a locally enhanced nonidealness (resistivity). It is shown that the dynamical evolution leads to structures which exhibit interesting properties of FTE's, where test particles are used as a diagnostic tool.
Numerical simulation of flux transfer events at the magnetopause: Electron dynamics
Advances in Space Research ; 11 , 9 ; 129-132
1991-01-01
4 pages
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English
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