Focused transport of energetic particles along magnetic field lines draped around a coronal mass ejection

1992 ◽  
Vol 97 (A2) ◽  
pp. 1597 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. C. Tan ◽  
G. M. Mason ◽  
M. A. Lee ◽  
B. Klecker ◽  
F. M. Ipavich
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Volwerk ◽  
Beatriz Sánchez-Cano ◽  
Daniel Heyner ◽  
Sae Aizawa ◽  
Nicolas André ◽  
...  

Abstract. Out of the two Venus flybys that BepiColombo uses as a gravity assist manoeuvre to finally arrive at Mercury, the first took place on 15 October 2020. After passing the bow shock, the spacecraft travelled along the induced magnetotail, crossing it mainly in the YVSO-direction. In this paper, the BepiColombo Mercury Planetary Orbiter Magnetometer (MPO-MAG) data are discussed, with support from three other plasma instruments: the Planetary Ion Camera (PICAM), the Mercury Electron Analyser (MEA) and the radiation monitor (BERM). Behind the bow shock crossing, the magnetic field showed a draping pattern consistent with field lines connected to the interplanetary magnetic field wrapping around the planet. This flyby showed a highly active magnetotail, with, e.g., strong flapping motions at a period of ~7 min. This activity was driven by solar wind conditions. Just before this flyby, Venus's induced magnetosphere was impacted by a stealth coronal mass ejection, of which the trailing side was still interacting with it during the flyby. This flyby is a unique opportunity to study the full length and structure of the induced magnetotail of Venus, indicating that the tail was most likely still present at about 48 Venus radii.


2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (5) ◽  
pp. 811-831
Author(s):  
Martin Volwerk ◽  
Beatriz Sánchez-Cano ◽  
Daniel Heyner ◽  
Sae Aizawa ◽  
Nicolas André ◽  
...  

Abstract. Out of the two Venus flybys that BepiColombo uses as a gravity assist manoeuvre to finally arrive at Mercury, the first took place on 15 October 2020. After passing the bow shock, the spacecraft travelled along the induced magnetotail, crossing it mainly in the YVSO direction. In this paper, the BepiColombo Mercury Planetary Orbiter Magnetometer (MPO-MAG) data are discussed, with support from three other plasma instruments: the Planetary Ion Camera (SERENA-PICAM) of the SERENA suite, the Mercury Electron Analyser (MEA), and the BepiColombo Radiation Monitor (BERM). Behind the bow shock crossing, the magnetic field showed a draping pattern consistent with field lines connected to the interplanetary magnetic field wrapping around the planet. This flyby showed a highly active magnetotail, with e.g. strong flapping motions at a period of ∼7 min. This activity was driven by solar wind conditions. Just before this flyby, Venus's induced magnetosphere was impacted by a stealth coronal mass ejection, of which the trailing side was still interacting with it during the flyby. This flyby is a unique opportunity to study the full length and structure of the induced magnetotail of Venus, indicating that the tail was most likely still present at about 48 Venus radii.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Volwerk ◽  

<p>Out of the two Venus flybys that BepiColombo uses as a gravity assist manoeuvre to finally arrive at Mercury, the first took place on 15 October 2020. After passing the bow shock, the spacecraft travelled along the induced magnetotail, crossing it mainly in the Y<sub>VSO</sub>-direction. We discuss the BepiColombo Mercury Planetary Orbiter Magnetometer (MPOMAG)<br />data, with support from three other plasma instruments: the Planetary Ion Camera (PICAM), the Mercury<br />Electron Analyser (MEA) and the radiation monitor (BERM). Behind the bow shock crossing, the magnetic field showed a<br />draping pattern consistent with field lines connected to the interplanetary magnetic field wrapping around the planet. This flyby showed a highly active magnetotail, with, e.g., strong flapping motions at a period of ~7 min. This activity was driven by solar wind conditions. Just before this flyby, Venus’s induced magnetosphere was impacted by a stealth coronal mass ejection, of which the trailing side was still interacting with it during the flyby. This flyby is a unique opportunity to study the full length and structure of the induced magnetotail of Venus, indicating that the tail was most likely still present at about 48 Venus radii. This presentation will take place after the second Venus flyby by Solar Orbiter and BepiColombo and Solar Orbiter on 9 and 10 August, respectively.</p>


2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (S327) ◽  
pp. 67-70
Author(s):  
J. Palacios ◽  
C. Cid ◽  
E. Saiz ◽  
A. Guerrero

AbstractWe have investigated the case of a coronal mass ejection that was eroded by the fast wind of a coronal hole in the interplanetary medium. When a solar ejection takes place close to a coronal hole, the flux rope magnetic topology of the coronal mass ejection (CME) may become misshapen at 1 AU as a result of the interaction. Detailed analysis of this event reveals erosion of the interplanetary coronal mass ejection (ICME) magnetic field. In this communication, we study the photospheric magnetic roots of the coronal hole and the coronal mass ejection area with HMI/SDO magnetograms to define their magnetic characteristics.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Ruffolo ◽  
Rohit Chhiber ◽  
William H. Matthaeus ◽  
Arcadi V. Usmanov ◽  
Paisan Tooprakai ◽  
...  

<p>The random walk of magnetic field lines is an important ingredient in understanding how the connectivity of the magnetic field affects the spatial transport and diffusion of charged particles. As solar energetic particles (SEPs) propagate away from near-solar sources, they interact with the fluctuating magnetic field, which modifies their distributions. We develop a formalism in which the differential equation describing the field line random walk contains both effects due to localized magnetic displacements and a non-stochastic contribution from the large-scale expansion. We use this formalism together with a global magnetohydrodynamic simulation of the inner-heliospheric solar wind, which includes a turbulence transport model, to estimate the diffusive spreading of magnetic field lines that originate in different regions of the solar atmosphere. We first use this model to quantify field line spreading at 1 au, starting from a localized solar source region, and find rms angular spreads of about 20 – 60 degrees. In the second instance, we use the model to estimate the size of the source regions from which field lines observed at 1 au may have originated, thus quantifying the uncertainty in calculations of magnetic connectivity; the angular uncertainty is estimated to be about 20 degrees. Finally, we estimate the filamentation distance, i.e., the heliocentric distance up to which field lines originating in magnetic islands can remain strongly trapped in filamentary structures. We emphasize the key role of slab-like fluctuations in the transition from filamentary to more diffusive transport at greater heliocentric distances. This research has been supported in part by grant RTA6280002 from Thailand Science Research and Innovation and the Parker Solar Probe mission under the ISOIS project (contract NNN06AA01C) and a subcontract to University of Delaware from Princeton University (SUB0000165).  MLG acknowledges support from the Parker Solar Probe FIELDS MAG team.  Additional support is acknowledged from the  NASA LWS program  (NNX17AB79G) and the HSR program (80NSSC18K1210 & 80NSSC18K1648).</p>


2008 ◽  
Vol 26 (6) ◽  
pp. 1617-1639 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. V. Sarafopoulos

Abstract. We suggest a candidate physical mechanism, combining there dimensional structure and temporal development, which is potentially able to produce suprathermal populations and cross-tail current disruptions in the Earth's plasma sheet. At the core of the proposed process is the "akis" structure; in a thin current sheet (TCS) the stretched (tail-like) magnetic field lines locally terminate into a sharp tip around the tail midplane. At this sharp tip of the TCS, ions become non-adiabatic, while a percentage of electrons are accumulated and trapped: The strong and transient electrostatic electric fields established along the magnetic field lines produce suprathermal populations. In parallel, the tip structure is associated with field aligned and mutually attracted parallel filamentary currents which progressively become more intense and inevitably the structure collapses, and so does the local TCS. The mechanism is observationally based on elementary, almost autonomous and spatiotemporal entities that correspond each to a local thinning/dipolarization pair having duration of ~1 min. Energetic proton and electron populations do not occur simultaneously, and we infer that they are separately accelerated at local thinnings and dipolarizations, respectively. In one example energetic particles are accelerated without any dB/dt variation and before the substorm expansion phase onset. A particular effort is undertaken demonstrating that the proposed acceleration mechanism may explain the plasma sheet ratio Ti/Te≈7. All our inferences are checked by the highest resolution datasets obtained by the Geotail Energetic Particles and Ion Composition (EPIC) instrument. The energetic particles are used as the best diagnostics for the accelerating source. Near Earth (X≈10 RE) selected events support our basic concept. The proposed mechanism seems to reveal a fundamental building block of the substorm phenomenon and may be the basic process/structure, which is now missing, that might help explain the persistent, outstanding deficiencies in our physical description of magnetospheric substorms. The mechanism is tested, checked, and found consistent with substorm associated observations performed ~30 and 60 RE away from Earth.


2016 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 313-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erika Palmerio ◽  
Emilia K. J. Kilpua ◽  
Neel P. Savani

Abstract. Planar magnetic structures (PMSs) are periods in the solar wind during which interplanetary magnetic field vectors are nearly parallel to a single plane. One of the specific regions where PMSs have been reported are coronal mass ejection (CME)-driven sheaths. We use here an automated method to identify PMSs in 95 CME sheath regions observed in situ by the Wind and ACE spacecraft between 1997 and 2015. The occurrence and location of the PMSs are related to various shock, sheath, and CME properties. We find that PMSs are ubiquitous in CME sheaths; 85 % of the studied sheath regions had PMSs with the mean duration of 6 h. In about one-third of the cases the magnetic field vectors followed a single PMS plane that covered a significant part (at least 67 %) of the sheath region. Our analysis gives strong support for two suggested PMS formation mechanisms: the amplification and alignment of solar wind discontinuities near the CME-driven shock and the draping of the magnetic field lines around the CME ejecta. For example, we found that the shock and PMS plane normals generally coincided for the events where the PMSs occurred near the shock (68 % of the PMS plane normals near the shock were separated by less than 20° from the shock normal), while deviations were clearly larger when PMSs occurred close to the ejecta leading edge. In addition, PMSs near the shock were generally associated with lower upstream plasma beta than the cases where PMSs occurred near the leading edge of the CME. We also demonstrate that the planar parts of the sheath contain a higher amount of strong southward magnetic field than the non-planar parts, suggesting that planar sheaths are more likely to drive magnetospheric activity.


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