Topology Of Magnetic Flux Ropes In The Magnetospheric Plasma Sheet As Measured By The Geotail Spacecraft

摘要

Magnetic reconnections providing for explosion-like transformation of the accumulated magnetic energy into the energy of rapid plasma flows and heating of the plasma sheet are one of the key processes of the magnetospheric dynamics. In the real configuration, the reconnection leads to generation of plasmoids (magnetic loops), or (in the presence of the magnetic field component across the tail (B_y)) of structures with screw tubes, magnetic flux ropes (FR). In the magnetospheric tail geometry, a plasmoid/FR with the axis stretched across the tail forms a screw field with a reversal of the B_z component sign (see Fig. la). The motion of this field along X leads to a bipolar variation in B,. Unlike plasmoids, an FR structure contains the strong magnetic field along the structure axis (B_y).