Energy transport in Earth’s magnetotail by fast flows

Abstract

Fast flows characterized by flow speed greater than the convectional speed (≈50 km/s) carry most of the energy and momentum from the magnetotail reconnection site and distribute it throughout the magnetosphere. This input energy plays a significant role in the magnetospheric dynamics. Energy is transported either by particle energy flux, such as bulk kinetic energy flux, enthalpy flux, and heat flux, or/and by waves, such as Poynting flux.  Hence, it is important to understand the distribution of these energy fluxes and characterize their behavior. A statistical database is created irrespective of the ion flow speed using six years of night phase Magnetospheric MultiScale (MMS) data from 2017-2022 to investigate the energy transport by these fast flows. The total energy flux is decomposed into Poynting flux, bulk kinetic energy flux, enthalpy flux, and heat flux to explore the contribution of the individual energy flux. It is found that the energy fluxes show some asymmetry in the equatorial and meridional plane. The distribution of these fluxes over the three-dimensional (3-D) plane of Earth’s magnetotail will be presented. Further, their relative contribution through different magnetospheric regions will be discussed.