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AGU Fall meeting
14-18 December 2015, San Francisco, USA

Session ID: 8763
The Physics of Small-scale Magnetic Flux Ropes Throughout the Heliosphere
(SH017)

Convener: Jakobus Albertus le Roux,
University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, AL, United States.

Co-convener: Qiang Hu, University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, AL, United States (e-mail).

Description

Magnetic flux ropes in the heliosphere are usually associated with large-scale magnetic cloud structures inside interplanetary coronal mass ejections (CMEs) behind traveling shocks. However, a less well understood second class of smaller-scale flux ropes were also identified in observations. It seems that these flux ropes arise mostly from turbulent reconnection in primary large-scale current sheets, the heliospheric current sheet (HCS), primary current sheets at the leading and trailing edges of CME structures, the Earth’s magnetopause and magnetotail, and heliopause. MHD simulations suggest that they should exist everywhere in the solar wind. Enhanced fluxes of energetic particles were detected recently in multiple small-scale flux ropes near the HCS, suggesting particles acceleration by multiple flux-rope dynamics as simulations predict. We solicit observational, theoretical, and simulation contributions that will shed light on the fundamental physics of flux ropes of all scales throughout the heliosphere including particle energization and other associated processes.

WEB address: http://fallmeeting.agu.org/2015/

Abstracts deadline is 5 August 2015, 11:59 P.M. EDT.
Submissions can be made at http://fallmeeting.agu.org/2015/abstract-submissions/