| Original Articles |
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Probability of Field-Aligned Currents Observed by the Satellite Cluster in the Magnetotail |
| CHENG Zheng-Wei 1,3;SHI Jian-Kui 1;ZHANG Tie-Long 2;LIU Zhen-Xing 1 |
| 1State Key Laboratory for Space Weather, Center for Space Science and Applied Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 1000802Space Research Institute, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Graz, Austria3Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049 |
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| Cite this article: |
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CHENG Zheng-Wei, SHI Jian-Kui, ZHANG Tie-Long et al 2007 Chin. Phys. Lett. 24 1125-1127 |
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Abstract Field-aligned current (FAC) density distribution at the plasma sheet boundary layers is statistically studied. The FAC is calculated by the so-called curlometer technique with the data from FGM onboard the four Cluster spacecraft in 2001. By calculation we obtain a large number of FAC samples. In the samples, most of calculated FAC densities were very small and around zero caused by some errors or noise. In order to get the real FAC density distribution in the magnetotail, we use a three-Gaussian distribution to fit the errors, then subtract the estimated error contribution from the full distribution and obtain the FAC density distribution. The result shows that the FAC occurrence versus its density has a distribution consisting of a Gaussian
distribution with an additional decreasing exponential distribution. The most probable value of the FAC density is 3.45pT/km.
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| Keywords:
94.30.-d
94.30.Ct
94.30.Kq
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Received: 24 November 2006
Published: 26 March 2007
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| PACS: |
94.30.-d
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(Physics of the magnetosphere)
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94.30.ct
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(Plasma sheet)
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94.30.Kq
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(Electric fields, field-aligned currents and current systems, and ring currents)
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