Numerical Simulation on a Possible Formation Mechanism of Interplanetary Magnetic Cloud Boundaries

The formation mechanism of the interplanetary magnetic cloud (MC) boundaries is numerically investigatedby simulating the interactions between an MC of some initial momentum and a local interplanetary current sheet.The compressible 2.5D MHD equations are solved. Results show that the magnetic reconnection process is a possibleformation mechanism when an MC interacts with a surrounding current sheet. A number of interesting features arefound. For instance, the front boundary of the MCs is a magnetic reconnection boundary that could be caused by adriven reconnection ahead of the cloud, and the tail boundary might be caused by the driving of the entrained flowas a result of the Bernoulli principle. Analysis of the magnetic field and plasma data demonstrates that at these twoboundaries appear large value of the plasma parameterβ, clear increase of plasma temperature and density, distinctdecrease of magnetic magnitude, and a transition of magnetic field direction of about 180 degrees. The outcome of thepresent simulation agrees qualitatively with the observational results on MC boundary inferred from IMP-8, etc.