Calculating the motion and direction of Flux Transfer Events with Cluster

AbstractFor many years now, the interactions of the solar wind plasma with theEarth’s magnetosphere has been one of the most important problems for SpacePhysics. It is very important that we understand these processes because thehigh-energy particles and also the solar wind energy that cross the magneto-sphere could be responsible for serious damage to our technological systems.The solar wind is inherently a dynamic medium, and the particles interac-tion with the Earth’s magnetosphere can be steady or unsteady. Unsteadyinteraction include transient processes like bursty magnetic reconnection. FluxTransfer Events (FTEs) are magnetopause signatures that usually occur duringtransient times of reconnection. They exhibit bipolar signatures in the normalcomponent of the magnetic eld. We use multi-point timing analysis to deter-mine the orientation and motion of ux transfer events (FTEs) detected by thefour Cluster spacecraft on the high-latitude dayside and ank magnetopauseduring 2002 and 2003. During these years, the distances between the Clusterspacecraft were greater than 1000 km, providing the tetrahedral con gurationneeded to select events and determine velocities. Each velocity and locationwill be examined in detail and compared to the velocities and locations de-termined by the predictions of the component and antiparallel reconnectionmodels for event formation, orientation, motion, and acceleration for a widerange of spacecraft locations and solar wind conditions.