Space Physics Seminar spring-2013

The lecture will review the gross steps in the solar wind-magnetosphere interaction leading to driven convection in the high-latitude magnetosphere or temporary storage of magnetic energy in the tail (and subsequent release during the substorm). Both processes work during the growth phase. The main questions that will be addressed in the lecture are: (1) What is the nature of the growth phase arc? (2) What are the auroral steamers arising from poleward boundary intensifications (PBI’s)? (3) What process is behind the correlation between substorm onset and near-contact of the two aforementioned arcs? (4) Which type of current system is connected with substorm breakup? Possible answers to these questions will be approached by analyzing published and new data on the growth phase arc and auroral streamers as well as on the relation between substorm onset and dipolarization fronts in the near-earth tail.