Pressure balance inconsistency exhibited in a statistical model of magnetospheric plasma

Abstract

While quantitative theories of plasma flow from the magnetotail to the inner magnetosphere typically assume adiabatic convection, it has long been understood that these convection models tend to overestimate the plasma pressure in the inner magnetosphere. This phenomenon is called the pressure crisis or the pressure balance inconsistency. In order to analyze it in a new and more detailed manner we utilize an empirical model of the proton and electron distribution functions in the near-Earth plasma sheet (-50 RE < X