SM12A-05
Influence of the Magnetosheath Waves on the Dayside Reconnection
Monday, 14 December 2015: 11:14
2018 (Moscone West)
Sanni Hoilijoki1,2, Brian Walsh3, Tiera Laitinen1, Yann Pfau-Kempf1,2, Urs Ganse2, Arto Sandroos4, Otto Hannuksela1,2, Sebastian von Alfthan1,5, Heli Hietala6, Rami O Vainio7 and Minna Palmroth1, (1)Finnish Meteorological Institute, Helsinki, Finland, (2)University of Helsinki, Department of Physics, Helsinki, Finland, (3)University of California Berkeley, Space Sciences Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, United States, (4)Finnish Meteorological Institute, San Francisco, CA, United States, (5)CSC Centre for Scientific Computing, Espoo, Finland, (6)Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom, (7)University of Turku, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Turku, Finland
Abstract:
We investigate the influence of the magnetosheath waves on the temporal and spatial variations of the dayside magnetopause reconnection using the global hybrid-Vlasov simulation Vlasiator (
http://vlasiator.fmi.fi) developed at the Finnish Meteorological Institute. In simulations with steady solar wind conditions we observe waves with the characteristics of mirror modes form behind the terrestrial bow shock and advect to the magnetopause. These compressional waves have anticorrelated magnetic field and density causing large beta variations and thus could cause variation in the properties of reconnection. At the magnetopause boundary there is strong evidence for magnetic reconnection including the formation of two-dimensional equivalents of flux transfer events (FTE). There are large variations in the temporal and spatial properties of the FTEs indicating a possible connection to the variations in the magnetosheath inflow region. Finally, we compare our results with THEMIS observation from the magnetopause crossings.
