Date of Award

Winter 2024

Project Type

Dissertation

Program or Major

Physics

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

First Advisor

Amy Keesee

Second Advisor

Lynn Kistler

Third Advisor

Chanda P Weinstein

Abstract

Magnetosphere – Ionosphere (MI) coupling plays an important role in Earth’s overall space environment. MI coupling influences ion dynamics in the plasma sheet, the evolution of ring current ions, and field aligned currents during storm time events. The coupling of these two regions makes it important to understand both as a whole, rather than individually. Understanding the importance of the magnetosphere-Ionospheric system and how the coupling affects earth’s space environment is made difficult due to the reliance on localized in-situ measurements and the spacecraft being at the right location at the right time.

The Two Wide-Angle Imaging Neutral-Atom Spectrometers (TWINS), circling the Earth in a Molinya orbit, captures Energetic Neutrals Atoms (ENAs) in the Earth's space environment. These ENAs are used to generate temperature maps that provides a global overview of particle dynamics in the magnetotail. Mesoscale features of the magnetotail are examined with the aid of in-situ measurements, and global temperature maps. Making use of the SuperMAG magnetometers, we correlate the features seen in the temperature maps with ionospheric observations by developing an interconnected network of magnetometer stations and observing the spatial and temporal evolution of connections within the network. Current observations in the form of Spherical Elementary Current Systems (SECS) derived from the magnetometer stations are also used for further validation of the temperature maps. Simulations of case study events are used to validate features seen in the ENA temperature maps and the spatio-temporal evolution of the network parameters. Key findings showed a merging of small scale structures in the magnetotail in the temperature maps, corroborated with simulations, shedding more light on the dynamics and evolution of mesoscale phenomena. Strong correlation between mesoscale features in the temperature maps and magnetic field variations on the ground were also established with the aid of the Network Analysis performed on the SuperMAG magnetometer stations, validating the temperature maps.

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