Imaging the Earth's magnetosphere response to solar wind variability

成像地球磁层对太阳风变化的响应

• 批准号: 2728040
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University College London
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2022 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2728040
• 关键词: Imaging; Earth; magnetosphere; response; solar

It is known that soft X-rays are produced in the Earth's magnetosheath and cusps by the process of charge exchange between solar wind ions and neutrals in the Earth's exosphere. The Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer (SMILE - https://mssl.ucl.ac.uk/SMILE/) is a joint mission of the European Space Agency and the Chinese Academy of Sciences that will study the interaction of the solar wind with the Earth's magnetosphere. At the end of 2024 the mission will take into space four instruments, two of them being imagers, the Soft X-ray Imager (SXI) and the UV Imager (UVI). SXI will take X-ray images of the dayside magnetosphere with the purpose of studying its response to solar wind variations in a totally new way.In order to understand the data SMILE will return, we are simulating the X-rays emitted by the cusp and magnetosheath and the output of SXI.The motivation behind this PhD project is that of studying large-scale magnetic reconnection at the dayside magnetopause and transitions between different magnetospheric modes. Dayside reconnection is induced by an increase in the solar wind dynamic pressure and/or a southward interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) turning. So far, many modelling and observational studies have been devoted to the magnetospheric response to solar wind pressure jumps (e.g. interplanetary shocks) and to solar wind tangential/rotational discontinuities. These phenomena are part of what we call 'space weather', representing the impact of solar wind variability on environmental conditions in near Earth space, which can have severe disrupting consequences on our technological infrastructure, in space and on the ground. A particularly interesting issue is the magnetospheric response to southward IMF turnings. This is important in magnetospheric physics because the IMF component orthogonal to the equatorial plane is thought to be one of the most important driving parameters for the solar wind - magnetosphere interaction. And it is a topic that has great potential for investigations applying SMILE imaging.Questions that the project will try to find an answer to are like: Which types of solar wind structures are related to southward IMF turnings? Are they the sort of conditions that lead to geomagnetic storms and substorms? In addition, there are many other unresolved issues that a PhD project in this area can address. For example, we know that the magnetopause shape and position are different for northward and southward IMF but the empirical and MHD models we have do not describe them accurately. MHD model runs, combined with observations from spacecraft, could better constrain the mathematical form of the magnetopause shape.

众所周知，通过太阳能离子和地球外部层中的中性物之间的电荷交换过程，在地球的磁石中产生了软X射线。太阳能风磁层电离层链接探索者（微笑-https：//mssl.ucl.ac.uk/smile/）是欧洲航天局和中国科学院的联合任务地球的磁层。在2024年底，任务将进入太空四个乐器，其中两种是成像仪，柔软的X射线成像器（SXI）和UV Imager（UVI）。 SXI将拍摄时代磁层的X射线图像，目的是以一种全新的方式研究其对太阳风变化的响应。为了了解数据的微笑将返回，我们正在模拟Cusp和Cusp和Magnetosheath和SXI的输出。该博士学位项目背后的动机是研究时期的磁性磁性磁性重新连接和不同磁层模式之间的过渡。太阳风动态压力和/或向南的星际磁场（IMF）转弯会引起日期重新连接。到目前为止，许多建模和观察性研究已致力于磁层对太阳风压跳（例如星际间的冲击）和太阳风切向/旋转不连续性的磁层响应。这些现象是我们所说的“太空天气”的一部分，代表了太阳风变异性对近地球空间环境条件的影响，这可能会对我们的技术基础设施，太空和地面上产生严重破坏的后果。一个特别有趣的问题是对南部IMF转弯的磁层响应。这在磁层物理学中很重要，因为IMF成分与赤道平面的正交被认为是太阳风 - 磁层相互作用的最重要的驱动参数之一。这个话题具有应用微笑成像的调查的巨大潜力。问题将试图找到答案的问题：哪些类型的太阳能风结构与南向IMF转向有关？它们是导致地磁风暴和实体的条件吗？此外，该领域的博士项目还可以解决许多其他未解决的问题。例如，我们知道磁磁形状和位置在北向和南部IMF不同，但是我们没有准确地描述它们的经验和MHD模型。 MHD模型运行，结合了航天器的观察结果，可以更好地限制磁磁形状的数学形式。