Articles | Volume 32, issue 2
https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-32-99-2014
https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-32-99-2014
Regular paper
 | 
17 Feb 2014
Regular paper |  | 17 Feb 2014

Statistical visualization of the Earth's magnetotail and the implied mechanism of substorm triggering based on superposed-epoch analysis of THEMIS data

S. Machida, Y. Miyashita, A. Ieda, M. Nosé, V. Angelopoulos, and J. P. McFadden

Abstract. To investigate the physical mechanism responsible for substorm triggering, we performed a superposed-epoch analysis using plasma and magnetic-field data from THEMIS probes. Substorm onset timing was determined based on auroral breakups detected by all-sky imagers at the THEMIS ground-based observatories. We found earthward flows associated with north–south auroral streamers during the substorm growth phase. At around X = −12 Earth radii (RE), the northward magnetic field and its elevation angle decreased markedly approximately 4 min before substorm onset. Moreover, a northward magnetic-field increase associated with pre-onset earthward flows was found at around X = −17 RE. This variation indicates that local dipolarization occurs. Interestingly, in the region earthwards of X = −18 RE, earthward flows in the central plasma sheet (CPS) reduced significantly approximately 3 min before substorm onset, which was followed by a weakening of dawn-/duskward plasma-sheet boundary-layer flows (subject to a 1 min time lag). Subsequently, approximately 1 min before substorm onset, earthward flows in the CPS were enhanced again and at the onset, tailward flows started at around X = −20 RE. Following substorm onset, an increase in the northward magnetic field caused by dipolarization was found in the near-Earth region. Synthesizing these results, we confirm our previous results based on GEOTAIL data, which implied that significant variations start earlier than both current disruption and magnetic reconnection, at approximately 4 min before substorm onset roughly halfway between the two regions of interest; i.e. in the catapult current sheet.

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