1 / 9

Magnetospheric Reconnection and Accelerated Flows

Magnetospheric Reconnection and Accelerated Flows. Claire Kuang Mentor: Dr. David Sibeck. Basic Concepts Current Theories My Research and Results Future Research. What is reconnection?. Occurs at the boundary of two different magnetic fields

hao
Download Presentation

Magnetospheric Reconnection and Accelerated Flows

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Magnetospheric Reconnection and Accelerated Flows Claire Kuang Mentor: Dr. David Sibeck • Basic Concepts • Current Theories • My Research and Results • Future Research

  2. What is reconnection? • Occurs at the boundary of two different magnetic fields • Allows energy from the sun to penetrate the magnetosphere

  3. Bi θ B0 Bi θ B0 Branches of Thought “The direction of the line cannot be uniquely determined and may lie anywhere in the range of angles such that [components perpendicular to the line must reverse] is satisfied.” ~Cowley 1976 Completely Predictable … or Unpredictable! “It is conceivable that solutions … exist with other orientations. But such solutions by necessity must display a peculiar asymmetry between the plasma ejections regions above and below the reconnection line.” ~Sonnerup 1974 What can we learn from models?

  4. My Research • Used models (through CCMC) to select and compare specific run conditions • Manually identified reconnection on the XZ plane • Plotted these data points to determine the line of reconnection • Compiled a database of runs and results for future reference

  5. My Research

  6. IMF direction Reconnection line Fast flow direction Preliminary Conclusions The reconnection line tiltswith respect to IMF angle in a predictable manner, though the exact degree varies with the parameters of each run. The degree of tilt is noticeably affected by the strength of the IMF. Stronger IMF = larger tilt

  7. Sonnerup vs. Cowley • DID observe asymmetric flows above and below the reconnection line • Fulfilled Cowley’s requirement of flow reversal, and found consistent tilt angles (~95% similar across runs)

  8. Further Research… • Continue to look at more runs for a more comprehensive picture of reconnection in models OR • Why are there missing accelerated flows for certain runs? • Is the reconnection line actually a line?

  9. Special thanks to… • Dr. David Sibeck • Dr. Hui Zhang • Intern coordinator Cori Quirk

More Related