Distant magnetotail reconnection and the coupling to the near‐Earth plasma sheet: Wind and Geotail case study

Abstract

We have studied the coupling between the distant and near‐Earth plasma sheet during an 8 hour interval on April 1, 1999 when the interplanetary magnetic field was northward and dominated by the By component. During these 8 hours the Geotail spacecraft sampled the near‐Earth magnetotail at XGSM ∼ −25 RE while the Wind spacecraft was located in the distant magnetotail at XGSM ∼ −60 RE. Wind detected long duration (>8 hours) and likely spatially extended convective high speed flows indicative of continuous magnetic reconnection, whereas only plasma sheet boundary layer beams and some locally generated bursty bulk flows were observed at the Geotail location. Hence the high speed distant tail reconnection flows did not reach the near‐Earth plasma sheet at high speed. No apparent signatures of the long duration distant tail reconnection flows in terms of global and auroral geomagnetic activity were observed.