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These two magnetic domains are separated by a current sheet (an electric current that is confined to a curved plane). This heliospheric current sheet has a shape similar to a twirled ballerina skirt , and changes in shape through the solar cycle as the Sun's magnetic field reverses about every 11 years.
The heliospheric current sheet, or interplanetary current sheet, is a surface separating regions of the heliosphere where the interplanetary magnetic field points toward and away from the Sun. [1] A small electrical current with a current density of about 10 −10 A /m 2 flows within this surface, forming a current sheet confined to this surface.
The largest occurring current sheet in the Solar System is the so-called heliospheric current sheet, which is about 10,000 km thick, and extends from the Sun and out beyond the orbit of Pluto. In astrophysical plasmas such as the solar corona, current sheets theoretically might have an aspect ratio (breadth divided by thickness) as high as ...
The sheet on the high latitude side of the auroral zone is referred to as the Region 1 current sheet and the sheet on the low latitude side is referred to as the Region 2 current sheet. Together with the (partial) ring current, Region 1 and Region 2 currents form the convection circuit, which is associated with the Dungey cycle. [2]
Magnetic reconnection is a breakdown of "ideal-magnetohydrodynamics" and so of "Alfvén's theorem" (also called the "frozen-in flux theorem") which applies to large-scale regions of a highly-conducting magnetoplasma, for which the Magnetic Reynolds Number is very large: this makes the convective term in the induction equation dominate in such regions.
Schematic view of the different current systems which shape the Earth's magnetosphere. In many MHD systems most of the electric current is compressed into thin nearly-two-dimensional ribbons termed current sheets. [10] These can divide the fluid into magnetic domains, inside of which the currents are relatively weak.
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Artistic representation of Earth's magnetosphere. The plasma sheet is highlighted in yellow. In the magnetosphere, the plasma sheet is a sheet-like region of denser (0.3-0.5 ions/cm 3 versus 0.01-0.02 in the lobes) [citation needed] hot plasma and lower magnetic field located on the magnetotail and near the equatorial plane, between the magnetosphere's north and south lobes.