The principal goal of this three-year project is to understand the interaction of ballooning-interchange instabilities and magnetic reconnection processes in the magnetotail under substorm conditions. The project will use global MHD simulations with GGCM (Geospace General Circulation Model). Recent progress in substorm studies strongly suggests that the substorm onset is a synergistic process that involves the interactive coupling of both reconnection and ballooning-interchange instabilities in the magnetotail. In the past, global simulations were not capable of retaining ballooning-interchange processes in the near-Earth magnetotail, whereas models of substorm onset that include only reconnection processes are incomplete. Recent MHD simulations have established the conditions required to resolve the ballooning instability in the near-Earth magnetotail. With improvements in spatial resolution and the use of new parallel computing resources, the required conditions can now be met in the global simulations using GGCM. The capability of including the ballooning instability of the near-Earth tail in global simulations with GGCM will allow the study of its interactions with major substorm processes, such as magnetic reconnection and bursty bulky flows (BBFs). The project will identify and quantify the roles of the ballooning-interchange instability and magnetic reconnection in the global development of the current sheet during substorm conditions.
The project integrates teaching and research at all levels, from high-school students to junior researchers. It includes participation in a summer institute at the University of New Hampshire called Project SMART (Science and Mathematics Achievement through Research Training) which provides research experiences for high school students. The project is also part of a pilot summer internship program for undergraduates in their junior and senior years.
