High-speed flowing plasmas in the Earth''s plasma sheet

• 来源期刊: 科学通报(英文版)
• 学科: 地球科学
• 年，卷（期）: 2011,（12）
• 页码范围: 1182-1187
• 页数: 6页
• 分类号: P352
• 语种: 中文

摘要

A research topic of great interest to the space physics community is the observation of plasmas flowing at hundreds of kilometers per second in the Earth's plasma sheet. Although considerable effort has been made to understand the source of fast-flowing plasmas, many questions remain unanswered about the mechanisms that produce high-speed flows and the effects they have on magnetospheric disturbances, especially their contributions to magnetospheric convection and substorms. In this paper, we discuss briefly the history of high-speed flows and review the proposed mechanisms, signatures of high-speed flows in auroras and their interaction with the background plasma. We then summarize the relationships between high-speed flows and magnetic structures, discuss questions associated with substorms, and finally pose several important scientific questions that need to be addressed.