Vibrations of the earth's magnetic tail

The natural vibration period of the tail (regarded as bundle of magnetic line-of-force strings) and the characteristic time of recurrence of magnetospheric substorms are of the same order, suggesting the possibility of a relation between these phenomena. A model of the tail in the form of a plasma cylinder whose free boundary is immersed in the interplanetary plasma is examined. The nature of the natural oscillations of the tail excited by variations of the solar wind pressure is studied in this model. These vibrations have a total energy of approximately 10 to the 22nd power erg, which is sufficient to generate magnetospheric substorms.