Kinetic ballooning/interchange instability in a bent plasma sheet

Abstract

We use Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms (THEMIS) and GOES observations to investigate the plasma sheet evolution on 28 February 2008 between 6:50 and 7:50 UT, when there developed strong magnetic field oscillations with periods of 100 s. Using multispacecraft analysis of the plasma sheet observations and an empirical plasma sheet model, we determine both the large‐scale evolution of the plasma sheet and the properties of the oscillations. We found that the oscillations exhibited signatures of kinetic ballooning/interchange instability fingers that developed in a bent current sheet. The interchange oscillations had a sausage structure, propagated duskward at a velocity of about 100 km/s, and were associated with fast radial electron flows. We suggest that the observed negative gradient of the ZGSM magnetic field component (∂BZ/∂X) was a free energy source for the kinetic ballooning/interchange instability. Tens of minutes later a fast elongation of ballooning/interchange fingers was detected between 6 and 16 RE downtail with the length‐to‐width ratio exceeding 20. The finger elongation ended with signatures of reconnection in an embedded current sheet near the bending point. These observations suggest a complex interplay between the midtail and near‐Earth plasma sheet dynamics, involving localized fluctuations in both cross‐tail and radial directions before current sheet reconnection.