Simultaneous field‐aligned currents at Swarm and Cluster satellites

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Zeitschriftentitel:	Geophysical Research Letters
Personen und Körperschaften:	Dunlop, M. W., Yang, J.‐Y., Yang, Y.‐Y., Xiong, C., Lühr, H., Bogdanova, Y. V., Shen, C., Olsen, N., Zhang, Q.‐H., Cao, J.‐B., Fu, H.‐S., Liu, W.‐L., Carr, C. M., Ritter, P., Masson, A., Haagmans, R.
In:	Geophysical Research Letters, 42, 2015, 10, S. 3683-3691
Format:	E-Article
Sprache:	Englisch
veröffentlicht:	American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Schlagwörter:	General Earth and Planetary Sciences Geophysics

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Zusammenfassung:	<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>We show for the first time, with direct, multispacecraft calculations of electric current density, and other methods, matched signatures of field‐aligned currents (FACs) sampled simultaneously near the ionosphere at low (~500 km altitude) orbit and in the magnetosphere at medium (~2.5 <jats:italic>R<jats:sub>E</jats:sub></jats:italic> altitude) orbits using a particular Swarm and Cluster conjunction. The Cluster signatures are interpreted and ordered through joint mapping of the ground/magnetospheric footprints and estimation of the auroral zone boundaries (taken as indication of the boundaries of Region 1 and Region 2 currents). We find clear evidence of both small‐scale and large‐scale FACs and clear matching of the behavior and structure of the large‐scale currents at both Cluster and Swarm. The methodology is made possible through the joint operations of Cluster and Swarm, which contain, in the first several months of Swarm operations, a number of close three‐spacecraft configurations.</jats:p>
Umfang:	3683-3691
ISSN:	0094-8276 1944-8007
DOI:	10.1002/2015gl063738