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Near-Earth bursty bulk flows and AE index

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Abstract

With the 4-s resolution data of the magnetometer and the ion plasma analyzer on TC-1 from June to November of each year during the period of 2004-2006, we statistically analyzed the occurrence rate of both convective and field-aligned bursty flows (FABFs). A near-Earth bursty bulk flow (NEBBF) occurred during both the quiet time and substorm process. In general, the magnetic field and the plasma density began oscillating with the appearance of the NEBBF associated with a distinct increase of the AE index. The increase of AE index during the NEBBF was more than 100 nT in both quiet time and substorm process. The statistical analysis indicated that the occurrence rates of the FABFs were nearly the same in the different stages of the AE index, but the occurrence rate of the NEBBFs was much higher in the growth stage of the AE index, indicating that the NEBBFs were directly related to the growth and expansion phases of the substorm. The observations suggested that the quite large number of BBFs from the mid magnetotail could enter into the near-Earth tail and play important role in triggering the substorm onset.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Space Science and Applied Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China

    LingQian Zhang, JianKui Shi & ZhenXing Liu

  2. Space Research Institute, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Graz, Austria

    W. Baumjohann

  3. Institute for Fusion Theory and Simulation, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027, China

    ZhiWei Ma

  4. Space Sciences Division, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Chilton, Didcot, UK

    M. W. Dunlop

  5. Imperial College, London, UK

    C. Carr

  6. Centre d’Etude Spatiale des Rayonnements, Toulouse, France

    H. Rème

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  1. LingQian Zhang
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  2. JianKui Shi
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  3. ZhenXing Liu
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  4. W. Baumjohann
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  5. ZhiWei Ma
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  6. M. W. Dunlop
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  7. C. Carr
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  8. H. Rème
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to JianKui Shi.

Additional information

Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 40704031, 40674091 and 40536030)

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Zhang, L., Shi, J., Liu, Z. et al. Near-Earth bursty bulk flows and AE index. Sci. China Ser. E-Technol. Sci. 51, 1704–1712 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11431-008-0256-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11431-008-0256-9

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