ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Astron. Space Sci.
Sec. Space Physics
This article is part of the Research TopicVariability in the Solar Wind and its Impact on the Coupled Magnetosphere-Ionosphere-Thermosphere System, Volume IIView all 6 articles
The Correlations of Energetic-Electron Fluxes in the Earth's Central Plasma Sheet with Solar-Wind Variables and Geomagnetic Indices
Provisionally accepted
- 1Space Science Institute (SSI), Boulder, United States
- 2University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, United States
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Correlations are studied between the electron fluxes in the Earth's central plasma sheet and various solar-wind and magnetospheric parameters. Higher-energy (above about 2 keV) fluxes are the focus of the analysis. Flux measurements are taken during 950 current-sheet crossings in the central plasma sheet using 3-s-resolution electron measurements from the THEMIS-B and THEMIS-C spacecraft in the solar-minimum years 2007-2010. The current-sheet crossings were from 10.8 - 30.6 RE downtail from the Earth. Plots of the Pearson linear correlation coefficient rcorr as a function of the instrument channel energy are examined. Despite the complications of all of the solar-wind variables being intercorrelated with each other, indications are that whatever in the solar wind drives magnetospheric activity is what drives the fluxes of energetic electrons in the magnetotail plasma sheet. The correlation curves show that the energetic-electron fluxes are related to the electron bulk temperature of the central plasma sheet. Accounting for the fact that magnetospheric activity moves the plasma-sheet plasma earthward and systematically adiabatically heats the plasma as a function of downtail distance, it is found that the electron temperature at a given downtail distance from the Earth is related to the level of magnetospheric activity at the time that the temperature is measured. The correlations of energetic-electron fluxes with various common solar-wind coupling functions are examined. The impact of measurement shot noise in the data is examined and future work is outlined.
Keywords: coupling, Electrons, magnetosphere, plasma sheet, Solar wind
Received: 02 Oct 2025; Accepted: 09 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Borovsky, Runov and Espinoza. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Joseph E Borovsky
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