Open session on Magnetospheric, Ionospheric and Solar-Terrestrial physics
Date Submitted
2017-04-12 13:01:32
John Coxon
University of Southampton
Robert Fear (University of Southampton), Lorenzo Trenchi (ESRIN)
We present observations of five flux transfer events (FTEs) which were observed within a twenty-minute period on 3 October 2016. We employ measurements from the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) spacecraft located on the dusk flank of the magnetopause during a period of predominantly duskward IMF. The FTEs observed are of reverse polarity, indicating that they are moving towards the Southern Hemisphere. Of the events observed, we determine that two of our events are crater-type FTEs whereas the other two do not show crater-type signatures. We observe filamentary bidirectional field-aligned current signatures associated with the separatrix during two non-crater FTEs, similar to recent observations of signatures during a crater FTE (Trenchi et al, in prep). We also observe consistent unidirectional field-aligned current in two of the other FTEs. We examine our results in the context of the single and multiple x-line paradigms.