Pressure Gradient Evolution and Substorm Onset

Near-Earth current disruption (NECD) and substorm current wedge (SCW) formation are two related key phenomena for substorm onset. They are believed to be in close association with evolution of pressure gradient near the inner edge of plasma sheet. In the past, a few attempts have been made to investigate the pressure gradient in the late growth phase based on one- or two-spacecraft observations (e.g. , Korth et al., 1991; Pu et al., 1992; Shiokawa et al., 1998; Xing et al., 2010, 2011,etc). In this paper, with linearization assumption in the inner-probe region, we use THEMIS three-probe measurements to estimate the pressure gradient near the inner edge of the equatorward and duskward (dawnward) plasma sheet where pressure gradient in the Z-direction is almost vanished. We therefore can roughly get the two-dimensional pressure gradient in the X- and Y-direction simultaneously. Our observations indicate that the pressure gradients in both the X- and Y-direction enhance right after (within one minute) substorm onset. The enhanced pressure gradient in the Y-direction is duskward (dawnward) when the probes are in the duskside (dawnside) of the enhanced earthward flow in the growth phase. The enhanced dawn-dusk pressure gradients can drive downward field-aligned current (FAC) on the dawnside and upward FAC on the duskside, thus make contributions to the NECD and formation of SCW. THEMIS in situ data and all-sky auroral images for two events are presented, followed by a brief discussion.