Berlin 2005 – scientific programme

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EP: Extraterrestrische Physik

EP 18: Poster-Session I: CAWSES, Atmosph
äre und erdnaher Weltraum

EP 18.3: Poster

Friday, March 4, 2005, 09:00–19:00, Poster TU BH

Cluster observations of thin current sheets at the Earth’s magnetopause — •Evgenyi Panov¹, Jörg Büchner¹, Axel Korth¹, Markus Fränz¹, Bernd Nikutowski¹ und Karl-Heinz Glassmeier² — ¹Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung — ²Technische Universität Braunschweig

We use the unique opportunity of the four-satellite space mission CLUSTER, which for the first time allows the discrimination of spatial from temporal structures, to determine the thickness, motion and fine structure of magnetopause currents. In particular we analyzed events of subsequent multiple crossings of the magnetopause current sheet. We obtained that the thickness of the magnetopause current sheet can vary considerably within minutes, sometimes becoming as thin as an ion gyro-radius. Such thin current sheets can be understood only by a kinetic physical approach, e.g. Vlasov-code simulations [Silin and Büchner, 2004]. The, this way theoretically predicted lower-hybrid drift waves were, indeed, observed at the magnetospheric side of the magnetopause. Consequences of their occurence for anomalous diffusion due to wave particle interactions are considered.