About

Magnetic reconnection governs the coupling between the solar wind and the magnetosphere, determining the structure and dynamics of near-Earth space.  However, this process does not generally occur in a steady state, but in intermittent episodes known as flux transfer events (FTEs).  FTEs were first identified 3 decades ago, but their exact morphology, dynamics, and role in solar wind-magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling still elude a comprehensive description. 

We propose to bring together experts in the study of FTEs from different view-points (e.g. ground-based, space-based, and modelling) to review the work of the last 30 years and to use data from the Cluster extended mission, the newly-launched THEMIS mission, and supporting instrumentation such as auroral imagers and ionospheric radars, to finally gain a definitive and unified picture of FTE formation, occurrence rate, size, internal structure and importance in magnetospheric dynamics.   We plan to address:

• Controversy regarding the nature of flux transfer at the magnetopause 
• New data-sets coming on-line (Cluster and THEMIS) to address this 
• Our team comprises expertise in many fields related to flux transfer 
• We will synthesise old and new observations to provide a definitive answer