Abstract
Approximately 11 years (Burch, 1968; Winningham, 1970; Heikkila & Winningham, 1971; Frank, 1971; Frank & Ackerson, 1971 and Russell et al., 1971) after the confirmation of “relatively uninhibited access” of magnetosheath plasma to the earth’s magnetosphere, in a region referred to as the polar cusp, we can pose the following question. Have we advanced our knowledge of the detailed access mechanism and place of entry of solar wind plasma into the magnetosphere and of the detailed magnetospheric magnetic field topology by examination of data acquired in the polar cusp region? In the following review we will attempt to answer this question and to pose future directions for interpretation of data obtained in the polar cusp vis a vis this question.
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© 1983 Plenum Press, New York
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Winningham, J.D., Heelis, R.A. (1983). The Low Altitude Cleft: Plasma Entry and Magnetospheric Topology. In: Hultqvist, B., Hagfors, T. (eds) High-Latitude Space Plasma Physics. Nobel Foundation Symposia Published by Plenum, vol 54. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-3652-5_5
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