Traveling Convection Vortices Induced by Solar Wind Tangential Discontinuities
01 January 2002
Two typical magnetic impulse events (MIEs) associated with traveling convection vortices (TCVs), observed on May 22, 1996 and May 27, 1998, are investigated using magnetic field data from high-latitude ground magnetometer networks and the solar wind data from the ISTP satellites. These two MIEs with TCVs have one-to-one correspondence with solar wind tangential discontinuities (TDs) with inward pointing motional electrical fields. Further, it is found that the initiation regions of the TCVs are where the TDs intersect with the magnetopause at right angles. These results suggest that hot flow anomallies (HFAs) produced by TDs are the source of these two MIEs and TCVs.