Abstract
Magnetospheric substorms are believed to represent the fundamental process of magnetospheric activity. A considerable research effort in magnetospheric physics is devoted to the identification of the physical processes that lead to the onset of substorms and that occur after onset. It is the aim of this paper to describe recent developments in this area. To set the scene, I will start out from a rather simple model developed about 25 years ago (Schindler, 1974), applying theoretical reasoning to selected results that had been obtained by a number of authors, including Coppi et al. (1966), Akasofu (1968), Axford (1969), Hones (1973), McPherron (1970), McPherron et al. (1973) and Nishida and Nagayama (1973). Then I will briefly list a number of improvements and refinements of that model, which will take us essentially to the status of the theory of the observational Near-Earth-Neutral-Line (NENL) model introduced by Hones (1977), as it was discussed in the mid eighties.
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Schindler, K. (1999). Formation Of Thin Current Sheets and Other Recent Developments In Magnetospheric Activity. In: Büchner, J., Axford, I., Marsch, E., Vasyliūnas, V. (eds) Plasma Astrophysics And Space Physics. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4203-8_23
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4203-8_23
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