Project Summary
FBURST is a project funded by ESA under the recent 4D ionosphere ITT that will advance the understanding of ionosphere-magnetosphere coupling using multi-spacecraft observations from past and present magnetospheric observatories. In this case, Swarm will be used in conjunction with Cluster and MMS to understand how bursty bulk flows (BBFs) couple to the ionosphere via field-aligned currents.
Personnel
| Name | Institute | Country |
|---|---|---|
| Andrew P. Dimmock | Swedish Institute of Space Physics, Uppsala | Sweden |
| Vanina Lanabere | Swedish Institute of Space Physics, Uppsala | Sweden |
| Stephan Buchert | Swedish Institute of Space Physics, Uppsala | Sweden |
| Yuri V. Khotyaintsev | Swedish Institute of Space Physics, Uppsala | Sweden |
| Octav Marghitu | Institute of Space Science, Bucharest | Romania |
Project contact: andrew.dimmock@irfu.se
Objectives and Science Cases
BBFs are fast (> 400 km/s) jets of plasma in the central plasma sheet with a temporal scale spanning ten to hundreds of seconds. They are the main topic of this project since it has been established that they are responsible for most sunward plasma transport from the magnetotail to the inner magnetosphere, meaning they play a pivotal role in the global magnetospheric energy budget. Below is a sketch of the formation of BBFs in the magnetotail, the finger-like structures demonstrate the complexity of the tail flows due to the 3D nature of the reconnection region.
How they couple to the ionosphere is via field-aligned currents (FACs), also known as Birkeland currents, which can be highly complex. Below is a sketch of the polar ionosphere around the pole in the northern hemisphere showing the ionospheric currents and field-aligned currents that couple to the magnetosphere.
Image taken from: Milan, S.E., Clausen, L.B.N., Coxon, J.C. et al. Overview of Solar Wind–Magnetosphere–Ionosphere–Atmosphere Coupling and the Generation of Magnetospheric Currents. Space Sci Rev 206, 547–573 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-017-0333-0
FACs are the oldest known manifestation of the coupling between the ionosphere and space and have been subject to research for decades. Despite this, the dynamics and mapping (especially at substorms on the nightside) into the tail have been subject to debate for many decades. This project aims to advance knowledge on this topic by studying the relationship between FACs and BBFs. The project has the following objectives and science cases.
Technical objectives
- Utilisation of long-term Swarm observations.
- Advance the connection of Swarm with present and future missions, in this case, Cluster and MMS.
- Develop novel Swarm data products for the better characterisation of ionospheric conditions.
Scientific objectives:
- Improve the characterisation of FACs.
- Advancement understanding of magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling.
Science cases:
- How do BBFs relate to the behaviour of FACs?
- How do BBFs modulate the planarity and spatial scale of FACs?
- Vanina Lanabere and Stephan Buchert attended the Swarm 10th Anniversary & Science Conference (2024. 08 – 12 April 2024) in Copenhagen Denmark, and an F-BURST poster was presented
Outreach activities to be added.
A database of BBFs observed by MMS was previously created by Louis Richard, in this project we have mapped all of these BBFs to the ionosphere and an updated database has been created. Available for download
Publications will be added as they are available.