Ionospheric signatures of pulsed reconnection at the Earth's magnetopause

Lockwood, M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7397-2172, Denig, W. F., Farmer, A. D., Davda, V. N., Cowley, S. W. H. and Lühr, H. (1993) Ionospheric signatures of pulsed reconnection at the Earth's magnetopause. Nature, 361 (6411). pp. 424-428. ISSN 0028-0836 doi: 10.1038/361424a0

Abstract/Summary

THE plasma precipitating into the Earth's dayside auroral atmosphere has characteristics which show that it originates from the shocked solar-wind plasma of the magnetosheath1'2. The particles of the magnetosheath plasma precipitate down a funnel-shaped region (cusp) of open field lines resulting from reconnection of the geomagnetic field with the interplanetary magnetic field3. Although the cusp has long been considered a well defined spatial structure maintained by continuous reconnection, it has recently been suggested4–6 that reconnection instead may take place in a series of discontinuous events; this is the ‘pulsating cusp model’. Here we present coordinated radar and satellite observations of a series of discrete, poleward-moving plasma structures that are consistent with the pulsating-cusp model.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/38828
Item Type	Article
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	No Reading authors. Back catalogue items Science > School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences > Department of Meteorology
Publisher	Nature Publishing Group
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