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Rights statement: ©2017. The Authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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Available under license: CC BY: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Final published version
Licence: CC BY: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - An analysis of magnetic reconnection events and their associated auroral enhancements
AU - Case, Nathan Anthony
AU - Grocott, Adrian
AU - Milan, Stephen
AU - Nagai, Tsugunobu
AU - Reistad, J. P.
N1 - ©2017. The Authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
PY - 2017/3
Y1 - 2017/3
N2 - An analysis of simultaneous reconnection events in the near-Earth magnetotail and enhancements in the aurora is undertaken. Exploiting magnetospheric data from the Geotail, Cluster, and Double Star missions, along with auroral images from the IMAGE and Polar missions, the relationship between a reconnection signature and its auroral counterpart is explored. In this study of 59 suitable reconnection events, we find that 43 demonstrate a clear coincidence of reconnection and auroral enhancement. The magnetic local time (MLT) locations of these 43 reconnection events are generally located within ±1 h MLT of the associated auroral enhancement. A positive correlation coefficient of 0.8 between the two MLT locations is found. The enhancements are localized and short-lived (τ≤10 min) and are as likely to occur during the substorm process as in isolation of a substorm. No significant dependence of the reconnection or auroral enhancement location on the dusk-dawn components of the solar wind velocity (Vy), IMF (By) or local By or Vy, as measured by the reconnection-detecting spacecraft, is found.
AB - An analysis of simultaneous reconnection events in the near-Earth magnetotail and enhancements in the aurora is undertaken. Exploiting magnetospheric data from the Geotail, Cluster, and Double Star missions, along with auroral images from the IMAGE and Polar missions, the relationship between a reconnection signature and its auroral counterpart is explored. In this study of 59 suitable reconnection events, we find that 43 demonstrate a clear coincidence of reconnection and auroral enhancement. The magnetic local time (MLT) locations of these 43 reconnection events are generally located within ±1 h MLT of the associated auroral enhancement. A positive correlation coefficient of 0.8 between the two MLT locations is found. The enhancements are localized and short-lived (τ≤10 min) and are as likely to occur during the substorm process as in isolation of a substorm. No significant dependence of the reconnection or auroral enhancement location on the dusk-dawn components of the solar wind velocity (Vy), IMF (By) or local By or Vy, as measured by the reconnection-detecting spacecraft, is found.
U2 - 10.1002/2016JA023586
DO - 10.1002/2016JA023586
M3 - Journal article
VL - 122
SP - 2922
EP - 2935
JO - Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics
JF - Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics
SN - 2169-9402
IS - 3
ER -