Association of an auroral surge with plasma sheet recovery and the retreat of the substorm neutral line

摘要

One of the periods being studied in the PROMIS CDAW (CDAW-9) workshops is the interval 0000-1200 UT on May 3, 1986, designated ''Event 9C.'' A well-defined substorm, starting at 0919 UT, was imaged by both DE 1 over the southern hemisphere and Viking over the northern hemisphere. The images from Viking, at 80-second time resolution, showed a surge-like feature forming at about 0952 UT at the poleward edge of the late evening sector of the oval. The feature remained relatively stationary until about 1000 UT when it seemed to start advancing westward. ISEE 1 and 2 were closely conjugate to the surge as mapped from both the DMSP and Viking images. We conclude that the plasma sheet recovery was occasioned by the arrival at ISEE 1,2 of a westward traveling wave of plasma sheet thickening, the wave itself being formed by westward progression of the substorm neutral line's tailward retreat. The westward traveling surge was the auroral manifestation of this nonuniform retreat of the neutral line. We suggest that the upward field aligned current measured by DMSP F7 above the surge head was driven by plasma velocity shear in the plasma sheet at the duskward ''kink'' in the retreating neutral line. By analogy with this observation we propose that the westward traveling surges and the current wedge field aligned currents that characterize the expanding auroral bulge during substorm expansive phase are manifestations of (and are driven by) velocity shear in the plasma sheet near the ends of the extending substorm neutral line.