Articles | Volume 28, issue 9
https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-28-1625-2010
https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-28-1625-2010
03 Sep 2010
 | 03 Sep 2010

The large-scale magnetospheric electric field observed by Double Star TC-1

Z. H. He, Z. X. Liu, T. Chen, C. Shen, X. Li, C. Carr, and H. Rème

Abstract. The relationship between the average structure of the inner magnetospheric large-scale electric field and geomagnetic activity levels has been investigated by Double Star TC-1 data for radial distances ρ between 4.5 RE and 12.5 RE and MLT between 18:00 h and 06:00 h from July to October in 2004 and 2005. The sunward component of the electric field decreases monotonically as ρ increases and approaches zero as the distance off the Earth is greater than 10 RE. The dawn-dusk component is always duskward. It decreases at about 6 RE where the ring current is typically observed to be the strongest and shows strong asymmetry with respect to the magnetic local time. Surprisingly, the average electric field obtained from TC-1 for low activity is almost comparable to that observed during moderate activity, which is always duskward at the magnetotail (8 RE~12 RE).