NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA.
Science. 2014 Mar 7;343(6175):1122-5. doi: 10.1126/science.1247212.
Magnetic reconnection is the primary process through which energy couples from the solar wind into Earth's magnetosphere and ionosphere. Conditions both in the incident solar wind and in the magnetosphere are important in determining the efficiency of this energy transfer. In particular, the cold, dense plasmaspheric plume can substantially impact the coupling in the dayside reconnection region. Using ground-based total electron content (TEC) maps and measurements from the THEMIS spacecraft, we investigated simultaneous ionosphere and magnetosphere observations of the plasmaspheric plume and its involvement in an unsteady magnetic reconnection process. The observations show the full circulation pattern of the plasmaspheric plume and validate the connection between signatures of variability in the dense plume and reconnection at the magnetopause as measured in situ and through TEC measurements in the ionosphere.
磁重联是能量从太阳风耦合到地球磁层和电离层的主要过程。入射太阳风和磁层中的条件对于确定这种能量转移的效率都很重要。特别是冷而密集的等离子体羽流可以极大地影响日间重联区的耦合。利用地面总电子含量（TEC）图和 THEMIS 航天器的测量结果，我们研究了等离子体羽流及其参与不稳定磁重联过程的同时进行的电离层和磁层观测。观测结果显示了等离子体羽流的完整循环模式，并验证了在磁层顶原位测量和通过 TEC 测量在电离层中测量到的密集羽流变化特征与重联之间的联系。
