Pollock, C.J., M.-C. Fok, J.-M. Jahn, J. M. McFadden, and D.G. Mitchell

Transport and Loss of Injected Magnetospheric Plasmas

Energetic plasma injections toward the inner magnetosphere and their
subsequent transport, trapping, and loss are several of the hallmarks of
magnetospheric storm and substorm phenomana. Modeling of post-injection
plasma transport has been important in understanding magnetospheric
dynamics, as well as in planning magnetospheric observations such as those
provided now by instruments on the IMAGE observatory. Highest energy plasma
transport is dominated by westward gradient and curvature drift. Medium
energy plasma (near 10 keV) is understood and observed by instruments on
IMAGE to be more stagnant, remaining concentrated in the night sector. Even
lower energy plasma (less than a few keV) may be expected to drift dawnward
and duskward under the influence of sunward convection during conditions of
strong magnetospheric convection. Fast observations have shown day side ion
populations in the few keV energy range on post injection time scales of a
few hours - much less than required by corotation. It is postulated that
these are due to convective flows through the dusk and dawn regions. We will
report on IMAGE/MENA and HENA observations of energy dependent post
injection plasma transport - and attempt to make contact with both global
models and Fast plasma observations.

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Submitted to the Spring 2001 AGU Meeting, Boston, Massachusetts