Abdullah Khan

For a long time, ballooning instabilities have been believed to be a possible triggering mechanism for the onset of substorm and current disruption initiation in the near-Earth magnetotail. Yet the stability of the kinetic ballooning mode (KBM) in a global and realistic magnetotail configuration has not been well examined. In this paper, stability of the KBM is evaluated for the two-dimensional Voigt equilibrium of the near-Earth magnetotail based on an analytical kinetic theory of ballooning instability in the framework of kinetic magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) model, where the kinetic effects such as the finite gyroradius effect, wave-particle resonances, particle drifts motions are included usually through kinetic closures. The growth rate of the KBM strongly depends on the magnetic field line stiffening factor $S$, which is in turn determined by the effects of the trapped electrons, the finite ion gyroradius, and the magnetic drift motion of charged particles. The KBM is unstable in a finite intermediate range of equatorial $β_{eq}$ and only marginally unstable at higher $β_{eq}$ regime for higher $T_e/T_i$ values. The finite ion gyroradius and the trapped electron fraction enhance the stiffening factor that tends to stabilize the KBM in the magnetotail far away from Earth. On the other hand, the current sheet thinning destabilizes KBM in the lower $β_{eq}$ regime and stabilizes KBM in the higher $β_{eq}$ regime.

Ballooning instabilities are widely believed to be a possible triggering mechanism for the onset of substorm and current disruption initiation in the near-Earth magnetotail. Yet the stability of the kinetic ballooning mode (KBM) in a global and realistic magnetotail configuration has not been well examined. In this paper, the growth rate of the KBM is calculated from analytical theory for the two-dimensional Voigt equilibrium within the framework of kinetic magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) model. The growth rate of the KBM is found to be strongly dependent on the field line stiffening factor $S$, which depends on the trapped electron dynamics, the finite ion gyroradius, and the magnetic drift motion of charged particles. Furthermore, calculations show that the KBM is unstable in a finite intermediate range of equatorial $β_{eq}$ values and the growth rate dependence on $β_{eq}$ is enhanced for larger $ρ_i$. The KBM stability is further analyzed in a broad range of $k_y$ for different values of ion Larmor radius $ρ_i$ and gradient ratio $η_j \equiv d\ln(T_j)/d\ln(n_j)$, where $T_j$ is the particle temperature and $n_j$ is the particle density. The KBM is found to be unstable for sufficiently high values of $k_y$, where the growth rate first increases to a maximum value and then decreases due to kinetic effects. The $k_y$ at the maximum growth rate decreases exponentially with $ρ_i$. The current sheet thinning is found to enhance the KBM growth rate and the unstable $β_{eq}$ regime in the near-Earth magnetotail.