Table of Contents

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. The simulation Model

2.1. Description of the code Figure 1. Coordinate grid 2.2. Initial conditions Figure 2. Initial state of the system 2.3. Boundary conditions 3.Simulation Results 3.1 System evolution Figure 3. System at t = 14.4

Figure 4. System at t = 21.6

Figure 5. System at t = 28.8

Figure 6. System at t = 36.0

Figure 7. System at t = 50.5

3.2 Behavior of plasma sheet Figure 8. Profile plots across plasma sheet 3.3 Field-aligned currents Figure 9. Parallel currents near Earth 3.4 Microphysical processes Figure 10. Plot Window

Figure 11. Display of field data

Figure 12. Velocity distribution plots

3.5 Other runs Figure 13. System at t = 28.8 with E_y = 0.

Figure 14. Initial configuration of run with thick plasma sheet

Figure 15. System at t = 36.0 initialized with thick plasma sheet

4. Discussion 4.1 Field-aligned currents and aurora Figure 16. Meridian scanning photometer record

Figure 17. Images of back ad white aurora

4.2 The dipolarization region

4.3 Plasma sheet morphology

5. Concluding remarks

Acknowledgements