Fast Magnetotail Reconnection: Challenge to Global MHD Modeling
Abstract
Representation of fast magnetotail reconnection rates during substorm onset is one of the major challenges to global MHD modeling. Our previous comparative study of collisionless magnetic reconnection in GEM Challenge geometry demonstrated that the reconnection rate is controlled by ion nongyrotropic behavior near the reconnection site and that it can be described in terms of nongyrotropic corrections to the magnetic induction equation. To further test the approach we performed MHD simulations with nongyrotropic corrections of forced reconnection for the Newton Challenge setup. As a next step we employ the global MHD code BATSRUS and test different methods to model fast magnetotail reconnection rates by introducing non-ideal corrections to the induction equation in terms of nongyrotropic corrections, spatially localized resistivity, or current dependent resistivity. The BATSRUS adaptive grid structure allows to perform global simulations with spatial resolution near the reconnection site comparable with spatial resolution of local MHD simulations for the Newton Challenge. We select solar wind conditions which drive the accumulation of magnetic field in the tail lobes and subsequent magnetic reconnection and energy release. Testing the ability of global MHD models to describe magnetotail evolution during substroms is one of the elements of science based validation efforts at the Community Coordinated Modeling Center.
- Publication:
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AGU Spring Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- May 2005
- Bibcode:
- 2005AGUSMSM33A..02K
- Keywords:
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- 2744 Magnetotail;
- 2784 Solar wind/magnetosphere interactions;
- 2788 Storms and substorms;
- 7835 Magnetic reconnection;
- 7843 Numerical simulation studies