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Modeling the Self-organized Critical Behavior of Earth's Plasma Sheet Reconnection DynamicsAnalyses of Polar UVI auroral image data show that bright night-side high-latitude W emissions exhibit so many of the key properties of systems in self-organized criticality that an alternate interpretation has become virtually impossible. These analyses will be reviewed. It is now necessary to find and model the source of this behavior. We note that the most common models of self-organized criticality are numerical sandpiles. These are, at root, models that govern the transport of some quantity from a region where it is loaded to another where it is unloaded. Transport is enabled by the excitation of a local threshold instability; it is intermittent and bursty, and it exhibits a number of scale-free statistical properties. Searching for a system in the magnetosphere that is analogous and that, in addition, is known to produce auroral signatures, we focus on the reconnection dynamics of the magnetotail plasma sheet. In our previous work, a driven reconnection model has been constructed and has been under study. The transport of electromagnetic (primarily magnetic) energy carried by the Poynting flux into the reconnection region of the model has been examined. All of the analysis techniques (and more) that have been applied to the auroral image data have also been applied to this Poynting flux. New results will be presented showing that this model also exhibits so many of the key properties of systems in self-organized criticality that an alternate interpretation is implausible. A strong correlation between these key properties of the model and those of the auroral UV emissions will be demonstrated. We suggest that, in general, the driven reconnection model is an important step toward a realistic plasma physical model of self-organized criticality and we conclude, more specifically, that it is also a step in the right direction toward modeling the multiscale reconnection dynamics of the magnetotail.
Document ID
20070017485
Acquisition Source
Goddard Space Flight Center
Document Type
Other
Authors
Klimas, Alexander J.
(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Date Acquired
August 23, 2013
Publication Date
January 1, 2006
Subject Category
Plasma Physics
Meeting Information
Meeting: Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory meeting
Location: Princeton, NJ
Country: United States
Start Date: April 13, 2006
End Date: April 15, 2006
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Work of the US Gov. Public Use Permitted.

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