Oscillation of Quasi-Steady Earth＇s Magnetosphere

A three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamics （MHD） code is designed specially for global simulations of the solar wind-magnetosphere-ionosphere system. The code possesses a high resolution in capturing MHD shocks and discontinuities and a low numerical dissipation in examining possible instabilities inherent in the system. The ionosphere is approximated by a spherical shell with uniform height-integrated conductance. The solar wind is steady, and the interplanetary magnetic field is either due northward or due southward. The code is then run to find solutions of the whole system. It is found that the system has never reached a steady state, but keeps oscillating with a period of about one hour in terms of density variation at the geosynchronous orbit. However, if a certain artificial resistivity is added either in the whole numerical box or in the reconnection sites only, the reconnections change from intermittent to steady regime and the oscillation disappears accordingly. We conclude that the Earth＇s magnetosphere tends to be in a ceaseless oscillation status because of the low dissipation property inherent in the magnetospheric plasma, and the oscillation may be driven by intermittent magnetic reconnections that occur somewhere in the magnetopause and/or the magnetotail.