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GEOSYNCHRONOUS SIGNATURES OF AURORAL SUBSTORMS PRECEDED BY PSEUDOBREAKUPS. IAGA conference, Toulouse, France 2005. A. Kullen (1), S. Ohtani (2), and H. Singer (3) (1) Swedish Institute of Space Physics Uppsala (2) The John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
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GEOSYNCHRONOUS SIGNATURES OF AURORAL SUBSTORMS PRECEDED BY PSEUDOBREAKUPS IAGA conference, Toulouse, France 2005 A. Kullen (1), S. Ohtani (2), and H. Singer (3) (1) Swedish Institute of Space Physics Uppsala (2) The John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (3) NOAA Space Environment Center
Introduction • Motivation • Whether/how is the near-Earth condition different between pseudobreakups and main onset ? • Method • Comparison between global auroral images (Polar UVI) and magnetic signatures at geosynchronous orbit (GOES 8,10). • Event selection • Of 57 growth phase pseudobreakups detected during a 3 month period (Kullen and Karlsson, 2004), all clear events are selected, where a GOES satellite is located between 21 MLT and 3 MLT (10 events).
GOES position mapped on Polar UVI images (using T96 model with 1h averaged sw data from ACE)
GOES magnetic field data Pseudobreakup Substorm Subtraction of the T89 B-field for quiet times from GOES data
Reason for delayed tail dipolarization Equatorward oval boundary at 0 MLT • Previous results: • Tail current disruption and dipolarization are initiallized locally and expand from there • -azimuthally (e.g. Nagai, 1982) • -tailward (e.g. Ohtani et al. 1992) • -earthward (Ohtani, 1998). • This study: • Pseudobreakup and main onset appear during relative quiescence on high latitudes. Hence, they map probably tailward of GOES position (Frank and Sigwarth, 2000) i.e., an earthward delay can be expected.
Reason for delayed dipolarization:I. Oval expansion after onset
Reason for delayed dipolarization:II. Dawn- or duskward substorm expansion
Results: 1. Dipolarization • A clear dipolarization is observed at GOES when the region of enhanced auroral activity reaches the mapped position of GOES. This suggests a connection between expansion of bright aurora and expansion of tail current disruption region.
H(GOES)-H(T98) at geosynchrounous orbit GOES at same longitude as pseudobreakup
Summary tail observations • Pseudobreakups are connected to a small hickup of Bh (in 7 of 10 cases). • Tail B-field stretching continues between pseudobreakups and substorms (in 8 of 10 cases). • A clear dipolarization appears 10-30 minutes after onset of the auroral substorm (in 9 of 10 cases). • Tail B-field stretching continues between auroral substorm onset and large dipolarization.
Results: 2. Pseudobreakups • Previous results (Kullen and Karlsson, 2004): Pseudobreakups appear during quiet times with low solar wind velocity, density and IMF. Tyically IMF Bz was weakly southward 0.5-2 hours before a growth phase pseudobreakup. An IMF northturn appears during the following substorm. • This study: Continued tail B-field stretching between pseudobreakup and main onset. • Conclusions: These results indicate that growth phase pseudobreakups occur while there is not yet enough free energy in the tail available for a substorm to appear. growth phase pseudobreakup