Interball-1 observations of flux transfer events

Abstract

Abstract. We present the results of a survey of 807 FTEs observed by Interball-1 on the mid-and high-latitude dayside and flank magnetopause. Dayside magnetosheath events show a strong tendency to occur for southward magnetosheath magnetic fields suggesting origin via component (or perhaps antiparallel) reconnection near the equatorial plane. Flank FTEs occur for both magnetosheath magnetic field orientations with only a slight preference for southward magnetosheath magnetic fields. These events are consistent with generation along an extended subsolar component reconnection line for all IMF orientations or a combination of reconnection along a subsolar component reconnection line for southward IMF and antiparallel reconnection at higher latitudes for northward IMF. The distribution of direct and reverse magnetosheath FTEs and the tilt angle of the reconnection line for dawnward and duskward IMF are in a good agreement with the theoretical predictions of the component merging model. The clear anticorrelation between the magnitude of the east/west (Bm) perturbation observed within magnetosphere FTEs versus Bm in the magnetosheath also demands an explanation of the FTEs in terms of reconnection along a tilted subsolar merging line, e.g. in terms of component merging.

MESSENGER observations of large dayside flux transfer events: Do they drive Mercury's substorm cycle?

“…The distribution of these normalized core field strengths is shown in Figure d. Whereas the core field of FTEs at Earth rarely exceeds 50 nT [ Wang et al , ; Korotova et al , ], some of the FTEs in this study have core fields of up to 400 nT, or 160% of the field strength just inside the magnetopause. By comparison, the typical ~1–2 nPa solar wind at 1 AU would produce a magnetic field intensity at Earth's magnetopause of ~50 to 70 nT.…”

“…Wang et al [] showed an asymmetry between the number of FTEs observed in the dawn and dusk sectors at Earth, but they ruled out the Parker spiral IMF sector as the cause of this asymmetry. Subsequent studies [e.g., Fear et al , ; Korotova et al , ] indicated that the location of the reconnection site(s) and the subsequent motion of the FTEs are governed primarily by the orientation of the magnetic field in the magnetosheath.…”

“…At Earth, FTEs have been observed at all locations on the magnetopause, from the dayside to the flanks and the postterminator regions, from measurements by the International Sun‐Earth Explorer (ISEE) [e.g., Russell and Elphic , ], Interball [e.g., Korotova et al , ], Active Magnetospheric Particle Tracer Explorers (AMPTE) [e.g., Sanny et al , ], Cluster [e.g., Wild et al , ; Dunlop et al , ; Fear et al , ], and the Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms (THEMIS) spacecraft [e.g., Hasegawa et al , ]. Typical FTE signatures span several minutes, and they have a characteristic repetition time of ~8 min [e.g., Rijnbeek et al , ; Kuo et al , ; Sanny et al , ].…”

The Influence of IMF Clock Angle on Dayside Flux Transfer Events at Mercury

“…FTEs have been observed at Earth at all locations on the magnetopause under a wide range of solar wind conditions by single spacecraft such as International Sun‐Earth Explorer 1 (ISEE 1) (Kawano & Russell, , ) and Interball‐1 (e.g., Korotova et al, ; Sibeck et al, ), in addition to many multispacecraft missions, including Cluster (e.g., Fear et al, ), Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms (THEMIS) (e.g., Korotova et al, ; Trenchi et al, ), and most recently Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) (e.g., Eastwood et al, ; Farrugia et al, ; Hasegawa et al, ), allowing for accurate determination of the orientation and scale size of the FTEs. Such detailed measurements are not possible with the single MESSENGER spacecraft; however, observations have nonetheless not only confirmed the presence of FTEs at Mercury but also shown them to be ubiquitous in nature (Imber et al, ; Slavin, Anderson, et al, ; Slavin, Lepping, et al, ; Slavin et al, , ).…”