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Detailed Reference Information |
Lee, L.C., Johnson, J.R. and Ma, Z.W. (1994). Kinetic Alfvén waves as a source of plasma transport at the dayside magnetopause. Journal of Geophysical Research 99: doi: 10.1029/94JA01095. issn: 0148-0227. |
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As the shocked solar wind with variable plasma density and magnetic field impinges on the dayside magnetopause, it is likely to generate large-scale Alfv¿n waves at solar wind magnetosphere interface. However, large gradients in the density and magnetic field at the magnetopause boundary effectively couple large-scale Alfv¿n waves with kinetic Alfv¿n waves. In this paper we propose that the wave power converted into kinetic Alfv¿n waves may play an important role in plasma transport at the dayside magnetopause and in electron acceleration along field lines. The transport can occur because, unlike the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) shear Alfv¿n waves, the kinetic Alfv¿n wave has an associated parallel electric field which breaks down the ''frozen-in'' condition and decouples the plasma from field lines. We calculate the average deviation of the plasma from the field line from which we estimate the diffusion coefficient associated with these ''bundles'' of decoupled plasma to be approximately 109m2/s. The parallel electric field also may lead to acceleration of electrons along field lines in the magnetopause boundary and may possibly provide an explanation for observed counterstreaming electron beams characterized by energies of 50--200 eV. ¿ American Geophysical Union 1994 |
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Abstract |
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Keywords
Magnetospheric Physics, Magnetopause, cusp, and boundary layers, Space Plasma Physics, Transport processes, Magnetospheric Physics, Solar wind-magnetosphere interactions, Space Plasma Physics, Wave-particle interactions |
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Publisher
American Geophysical Union 2000 Florida Avenue N.W. Washington, D.C. 20009-1277 USA 1-202-462-6900 1-202-328-0566 service@agu.org |
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