| 1. |
- Angelopoulos, V., et al.
(författare)
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First Results from the THEMIS Mission
- 2008
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Ingår i: Space Science Reviews. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0038-6308 .- 1572-9672. ; 141:1-4, s. 453-476
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- THEMIS was launched on February 17, 2007 to determine the trigger and large-scale evolution of substorms. During the first seven months of the mission the five satellites coasted near their injection orbit to avoid differential precession in anticipation of orbit placement, which started in September 2007 and led to a commencement of the baseline mission in December 2007. During the coast phase the probes were put into a string-of-pearls configuration at 100 s of km to 2 R-E along-track separations, which provided a unique view of the magnetosphere and enabled an unprecedented dataset in anticipation of the first tail season. In this paper we describe the first THEMIS substorm observations, captured during instrument commissioning on March 23, 2007. THEMIS measured the rapid expansion of the plasma sheet at a speed that is commensurate with the simultaneous expansion of the auroras on the ground. These are the first unequivocal observations of the rapid westward expansion process in space and on the ground. Aided by the remote sensing technique at energetic particle boundaries and combined with ancillary measurements and MHD simulations, they allow determination and mapping of space currents. These measurements show the power of the THEMIS instrumentation in the tail and the radiation belts. We also present THEMIS Flux Transfer Events (FTE) observations at the magnetopause, which demonstrate the importance of multi-point observations there and the quality of the THEMIS instrumentation in that region of space.
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| 2. |
- Sergeev, V. A., et al.
(författare)
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Substorm-Related Near-Earth Reconnection Surge : Combining Telescopic and Microscopic Views
- 2019
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Ingår i: Geophysical Research Letters. - : Blackwell Publishing. - 0094-8276 .- 1944-8007. ; 46:12, s. 6239-6247
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A strong ~11-min-long surge of the lobe reconnection was observed during a substorm on the tailward side of the near-Earth neutral line. In the southern lobe near the reconnection separatrix the MMS spacecraft observed short-duration earthward electron beams providing the local Hall current, tailward propagating Alfven wave (AW) bursts with Poynting flux up to 10−4 W/m2, and large-amplitude E field spikes (e-holes) and low hybrid waves. The reconnection surge was accompanied by substorm current wedge formation and fast poleward expansion of auroral bulge-related westward electrojet in the conjugate ionosphere. During its meridional crossing above the expanding bulge the Metop-2 spacecraft observed an intense energetic precipitation spike near the expected X line foot point and confirmed the dipolarized character of magnetic field lines inside of the bulge. Globally the observed average reconnection rate (<Ey > ~3.3 mV/m) was sufficient to produce the magnetic flux increase in the bulge, associated with observed fast poleward expansion (about 6° latitude in 5 min).
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