SH14B:
The Physics of Small-Scale Magnetic Flux Ropes throughout the Heliosphere II


Session ID#: 10679

Session Description:
Magnetic flux ropes in the heliosphere are usually associated with large-scale magnetic cloud structures inside interplanetary coronal mass ejections (CMEs) behind traveling shocks. However, a less well understood second class of smaller-scale flux ropes were also identified in observations. It seems that these flux ropes arise mostly from turbulent reconnection in primary large-scale current sheets, the heliospheric current sheet (HCS), primary current sheets at the leading and trailing edges of CME structures, the Earth’s magnetopause and magnetotail, and heliopause. MHD simulations suggest that they should exist everywhere in the solar wind. Enhanced fluxes of energetic particles were detected recently in multiple small-scale flux ropes near the HCS, suggesting particles acceleration by multiple flux-rope dynamics as simulations predict. We solicit observational, theoretical, and simulation contributions that will shed light on the fundamental physics of flux ropes of all scales throughout the heliosphere including particle energization and other associated processes.
Primary Convener:  Jakobus Albertus le Roux, University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, AL, United States
Convener:  Qiang Hu, University of Alabama in Huntsville, Department of Space Science, Huntsville, United States
Chairs:  Qiang Hu, University of Alabama in Huntsville, Department of Space Science and CSPAR, Huntsville, AL, United States and Amitava Bhattacharjee, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, United States
OSPA Liaison:  Qiang Hu, University of Alabama in Huntsville, Department of Space Science and CSPAR, Huntsville, AL, United States

Cross-Listed:
  • SA - SPA-Aeronomy
  • SM - SPA-Magnetospheric Physics
Index Terms:

7807 Charged particle motion and acceleration [SPACE PLASMA PHYSICS]
7835 Magnetic reconnection [SPACE PLASMA PHYSICS]
7839 Nonlinear phenomena [SPACE PLASMA PHYSICS]
7863 Turbulence [SPACE PLASMA PHYSICS]

Abstracts Submitted to this Session:

Particle Acceleration At Small-Scale Flux Ropes In The Heliosphere (Invited) (58654)
Gary Paul Zank1,2, Peter Hunana2, Parisa Mostafavi3, Jakobus Albertus le Roux4, Gang Li5, Gary M Webb6, Olga Khabarova7, Alan C Cummings8, Edward C Stone8 and Robert B Decker9, (1)Center for Space Plasma and Aeronomic Research, Huntsville, AL, United States, (2)University of Alabama in Huntsville, Space Science, Huntsville, AL, United States, (3)Applied Physics Laboratory Johns Hopkins, Laurel, United States, (4)University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, AL, United States, (5)University of Alabama in Huntsville, Department of Space Sciences and CSPAR, Huntsville, AL, United States, (6)University of Alabama in Huntsville, CSPAR, Huntsville, AL, United States, (7)IZMIRAN RAS, Moscow, Russia, (8)California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, United States, (9)Applied Physics Laboratory Johns Hopkins, Space, Laurel, MD, United States
Particle Acceleration at Filamentary Structures Downstream of Collisionless Shocks in the Heliosphere. (Invited) (59678)
Harald Kucharek, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, United States, Nikolai V Pogorelov, University of Alabama in Huntsville, Department of Space Science, Huntsville, AL, United States and Konstantin V Gamayunov, Florida Institute of Technology, Department of Aerospace, Physics and Space Sciences, Melbourne, FL, United States
Magnetic flux ropes at planetary magnetopauses (Invited) (58598)
Hiroshi Hasegawa, Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, JAXA, Department of Solar System Sciences, Sagamihara, Japan
Quantifying the tailward motion of reconnecting flux ropes at magnetopauses of Earth and other planets (Invited) (58901)
Paul Cassak1, Christopher Doss1, Minna Palmroth2, Sanni Hoilijoki2, Yann Pfau-Kempf2, Urs Ganse3 and John Dorelli4, (1)West Virginia University, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Morgantown, WV, United States, (2)Finnish Meteorological Institute, Helsinki, Finland, (3)University of Helsinki, Department of Physics, Helsinki, Finland, (4)NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, United States
Flux Rope Formation and Self-Generated Turbulent Reconnection Driven by the Plasmoid Instability in the Heliosphere (78542)
Amitava Bhattacharjee, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, United States and Yi-Min Huang, Princeton University, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, Princeton, NJ, United States
How Well Can the Observed Flux Ropes in the Solar Wind be Fitted by a Uniform-twist Flux Rope Model? (62103)
Yuming Wang, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China
Flux tubes embedded into reconnection outflows in the solar wind (61390)
Zoltan Voros1, Teimuraz Zaqarashvili2, Yury Sasunov1 and Yasuhito Narita1, (1)IWF Institute for Space Research, Graz, Austria, (2)University of Graz, Institute of Physics, Graz, Austria

See more of: SPA-Solar and Heliospheric Physics