Thick current sheets in the renovated model of the magnetosphere

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Abstract
Earlier work using the observed location and direction of field‐aligned currents to diagnose plasma distributions and magnetic field configurations in the outer magnetosphere is expanded to include thick adjacent current sheets mapping to the whole plasma sheet. Conclusions are as follows: (1) In the tail the total plasma content of flux tubes in the plasma sheet increases from its value on the midnight meridian in going toward both the dawn and the dusk flank. (2) There is a dusk to dawn component of convective flow across the tail with a value of the order of 10 kV. The field‐aligned currents in the tail map to the nonsymmetric current sheets observed at ionospheric levels due to the distortion of field lines consistent with the current sheets. (3) In the near‐earth plasma sheet the dusk to dawn convective flow component reverses to a westward flow before midnight, producing the Harang discontinuity. (4) Some of our basic ideas on magnetotail stability require rethinking.