Stability of Supersonic Flows at the Terrestrial Magnetopause. Conferencia invitada

GNAVI, G.

Mendoza, Argentina

Congreso; FLUIDOS-2006, IX Reunión sobre Recientes Avances en Física de Fluidos y sus Aplicaciones; 2006

Facultad de Ingeniería, U N Cuyo

The solar wind flow at the equatorial flanks of the terrestrial magnetopause is supersonic. The instability generated by the velocity shear at the low latitude boundary layer depends on several factors, the configurations of the interplanetary magnetic field and the geomagnetic field, the plasma compressibility, and the distance of the site from the subsolar point, being the main ones. The research of the Space Plasmas Group of the Instituto de Física del Plasma (CONICET-FCEyN/UBA) on the stability conditions of the magnetopause is reported. The most recent activities of the team are focused on three aspects. The use of high resolution data of the CLUSTER mission, which presently has on board of a fleet of four spacecrafts the most advanced instruments for magnetospheric studies, available through the collaboration with Dr. C. J. Farrugia, Space Research Center, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, USA. The computation of the characteristic values of the Kelvin-Helmholtz stability problem for models of the supersonic boundary layer with continuous profiles of the magnetohydrodynamic fields. The numerical simulation of the formation of vortices and the broadening of the boundary layer with a new advanced magnetohydrodynamic code developed at INFIP by L. Bilbao. Work supported by the grants UBACYT X291/04 y CONICET PIP 5291/05.