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Evidence for Particle Acceleration During Magnetospheric Substorms
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 April 2016
Abstract
Magnetospheric substorms represent the episodic dissipation of energy stored in the geomagnetic tail that was previously extracted from the solar wind. This energy release produces activity throughout the entire magnetosphere-ionosphere system, and it results in a wide variety of phenomena such as auroral intensifications and the generation of new current systems. All of these phenomena involve the acceleration of particles, sometimes up to several MeV. In this paper we present a brief overview of substorm phenomenology. We then review some of the evidence for particle acceleration in Earth’s magnetosphere during substorms. Such in situ observations in this most accessible of all cosmic plasma domains may hold important clues to understanding acceleration processes in more distant astrophysical systems.
Subject headings: acceleration of particles — Earth — solar wind
- Type
- Planetary Environments
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- Copyright © The American Astronomical Society 1994
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