Particle chaos in the Earth's magnetotail

Nonlinear particle dynamics is studied both in current sheets and near neutral lines. The parameter governing particle chaos in a current sheet with a constant normal component, B(n), is kappa=(R(min)/rho(max))(1/2), where R(min) is the minimum field line radius of curvature and rho(max) is the maximum gyroradius. In such a current sheet, motion can be viewed as a combination of a component normal to the current sheet and a tangential component. The parameter kappa represents the ratio of the characteristic time scale of the normal component to the tangential, and thus, particle chaos is maximized for kappa approximately 1. For kappa<1, the slow motion preserves the action integral of the fast motion, J(z), except near the separatrix, the phase space boundary separating motion that crosses the current sheet midplane from that which does not. Near a linear neutral line, it is found that the parameter b(n), which is the ratio of the characteristic vertical and horizontal field strengths, rather than kappa governs particle chaos. In the limit b(n)<1, the slow motion again preserves J(z), and J(z) has the same analytic form as in a constant B(n) current sheet. In the limit of b(n)<1, the structure of x-p(x) phase space is controlled by the stable and unstable manifolds associated with the unstable fixed point orbit at (x,p(x))=(0,0), and this structure lies along a contour of constant J(z).