Events in Physics
John Coxon (Southampton): Temporal behaviour of Birkeland currents in AMPERE
Abstract:
Birkeland currents, also known as field-aligned currents, are currents which flow along Earth鈥檚 magnetic field lines, electrodynamically linking the magnetopause and partial ring current to the ionosphere. I use observations from the Active Magnetosphere and Planetary Electrodynamics Response Experiment (AMPERE) to investigate the Birkeland currents through the polar cap and the timescales of those currents. I will start by reviewing my work examining Birkeland currents in the context of the Dungey Cycle and particularly look at their magnitudes and location with respect to magnetic reconnection. Then, I will move onto looking at the timescales of currents鈥� reaction to components of the Interplanetary Magnetic Field (IMF) using the Spatial Information from Distributed Exogenous Regression (SPIDER) technique pioneered by Robert Shore at the British Antarctic Survey. I will follow this with some preliminary results of using SPIDER in a case study of a geomagnetic storm. If time allows, I will then present some wildly preliminary work which I鈥檓 very excited about.