Authors

C.-P. Wang and L. R. Lyons
Department of Atmospheric Sciences, UCLA
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1565

M. W. Chen
Space Science Applications Laboratory M2-260, The Aerospace Corporation
El Segundo, CA

and

R. A. Wolf
Department of Space Physics and Astronomy, Rice University
Houston, Texas

Geophys. Res. Lett., 29(24), 2186, doi:10.1029/2001GL013984, 2002.

Abstract

In order to study the quiet time proton flow and magnetic field in the inner plasma sheet resulting from electric and magnetic drifts, we incorporate a modified version of the Magnetospheric Specification Model with a modified Tsyganenko 96 magnetic field model to self-consistently simulate plasma sheet protons and magnetic fields with a two-dimensional force balance maintained along the midnight meridian. The resulting equatorial proton flows and pressures agree very well with previously published AMPTE/IRM observations quantitatively. Because of this agreement, the simulated force-balanced magnetic field configuration should give more realistic plasma sheet magnetic field variations for quiet times than does the original T96 model. Specifically, beyond XGSM = -10 RE the equatorial profile of the self-consistent magnetic field has a flatter profile, which indicates that the magnetic flux tube volume in the 2-D self-consistent simulation decreases more slowly with decreasing distance from the Earth. This 2-D self-consistent simulation is also able to reproduce the observed flows and pressures better than our previous 1-D self-consistent simulation. The improvement results from a more accurate modeling of the coupling between the plasma and the magnetic field in the 2-D self-consistent simulation.

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Paper (pdf format)