Tail of the magnetosphere

Abstract

The Chapman and Ferraro [e.g., Beard, 1960] model of the magnetosphere is entirely dissipationless and, as a consequence, contains no tangential stress at the magnetosphere boundary. It has been suggested that either viscous interaction [Axford and Hines, 1961; Piddington, 1963] or reconnection of field lines [Dungey, 1961; Levy, Petschek, and Siscoe, 1963] can give rise to tangential stresses which produce internal convection within the magnetosphere. A number of auroral and ionospheric observations appear to be consistent with such a convection pattern. It was also suggested [Piddington, 1960] that tangential stresses might stretch the magnetosphere tail and thus account for the main phase of magnetic storms.