Effects of Bubble Injections on the Plasma Sheet Configuration
Abstract
The bimodal transport in the plasma sheet consists of sunward large‐scale, coherent, and slow motion of charged particles in the closed‐field‐line region as well as meso‐scale, localized, and transient fast flow bursts. It has been found that these earthward moving bursty bulk flows, also called “bubbles,” play a crucial role not only in the transporting mass and energy, but also in resolving the pressure‐balance crisis with their integrated effects. In this study, we examine how bubbles can affect the average configuration of the middle and inner plasma sheet using the Inertialized Rice Convection Model (RCM‐I). Bubbles are sporadically imposed at on the nightside plasma sheet, with optimized parameters that constrain their statistical properties. The consequence of the injection of these series of bubbles is evaluated by comparing against observed statistical results, including plasma moments and magnetic field configuration. Our findings confirm that bursty bulk flows are indispensable elements in the magnetotail plasma sheet.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Jun 01, 2021
- Source ID
- 10.1029/2021ja029127
Entities
People
- Ameneh Mousavi
- Chih-Ping Wang
- F. Toffoletto
- Jian Yang
- R. A. Wolf
- Sina Sadeghzadeh
- Weiqin Sun
- Wenrui Wang
Organizations
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- Chinese Academy of Sciences
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- National Science Foundation
- Rice University
- Southern University of Science and Technology
- Sun Yat-sen University