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THEMIS observations of two substorms on February 26, 2008

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Abstract

Two substorms occurred at ∼04:05 and ∼04:55 UT on February 26, 2008 are studied with the in-situ observations of THEMIS satellites and ground-based aurora and magnetic field measurements. Angelopoulos et al. have made a comprehensive study of the 04:55 UT event. We showed detailed features of the two substorms with much attention to the first event and to the relationship between mid-tail magnetic reconnection (MR) and substorm activities. It was found that in the earlier stage of each substorm, a first auroral intensification occurred 2–3 min soon after the start of mid-tail MR, followed by a slow and very limited expansion. The auroral arcs were weak, short-lived, and localized, characterizing all features of a pseudobreakup. We regarded the first auroral brightening as the initial onset of the substorms. A few minutes later, a second stronger auroral intensification appeared, followed by quick and extensive expansions. It was interesting to note that the second brightening and related poleward expansion happened almost simultaneously (within a couple of minutes) with the onset of earthward flow and dipolarization in the near-Earth tail and other phenomenon of the substorm expansion phase. We thus regarded the second auroral brightening as the major onset of the substorms. Furthermore, it was seen that during the growth phase of the two substorms, the polar cap open flux Ψ kept increasing, while it quickly reduced during the substorm expansion and recovery phase. These variations of Ψ implied that the evolution of the two substorm expansion phases were closely related to MR of tail lobe open field lines. Analysis of substorm activities revealed that the two events studied were small substorms; while estimate of MR rate indicated that the MR processes in the two substorms were weak. The aforementioned observations suggested that mid-tail MR initiated the pseudobreakup first; the earthward flow generated by MR transported magnetic flux and energy to the near-Earth tail to cause the formation of SCW and CD, which induced near-Earth dipolarization and major auroral brightening, and eventually led to the onset of the substorm expansion phase. These results were clearly consistent with the picture of NENL and RCS models and supported the two step initiation scenario of substorms.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Earth and Space Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China

    XiangNing Chu, ZuYin Pu, Xin Cao, Jue Wang, Yong Wei, QiuGang Zong, SuiYan Fu & Lun Xie

  2. Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Irkutsk, Russia

    V. Mishin, T. I. Saifudinova, M. V. Tolochko & L. A. Sapronova

  3. IGPP, UCLA, Los Angeles, California, USA

    V. Angelopoulos, Jiang Liu & C. T. Russell

  4. Instiute of Geophysics and Extraterrestrial Physics, Technical University of Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany

    K. H. Glassmeier

  5. Max Planck Institute of Solar System Research, Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany

    K. H. Glassmeier

  6. Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA

    J. Mcfadden, D. Larson, S. Mende & H. Frey

  7. Department of Physics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

    I. Mann

  8. Code 674, NASA/GSFC, Greenbelt, MD, USA

    D. Sibeck

  9. Centre d’Etude Spatiale des Rayonnements, Toulouse, France

    H. Reme

  10. Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College London, London, UK

    E. Lucek

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  1. XiangNing Chu
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  2. ZuYin Pu
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  3. Xin Cao
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  5. V. Mishin
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  6. V. Angelopoulos
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Correspondence to XiangNing Chu.

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Chu, X., Pu, Z., Cao, X. et al. THEMIS observations of two substorms on February 26, 2008. Sci. China Technol. Sci. 53, 1328–1337 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11431-009-0399-3

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