PLASMA SHEET BEYOND THE DISTANT NEUTRAL LINE

We have studied the properties of the plasma sheet in the distant magn etotail during a 12-h interval when the GEOTAIL satellite stayed rathe r continually in the plasma sheet. When magnetic reconnection was oper ative at the distant neutral line the tailward flow speed in the dista nt plasma sheet is given by the sum of the Alfven speed and the tailwa rd flow speed in the tail lobe. Appreciable twist of the tail should b e incorporated in order to properly estimate the magnetic flux that tr averses the distant neutral sheet to the south. The magnetic field bey ond the distant neutral line is characterized by active and persistent oscillations whose power spectrum has a kink around 0.01 Hz. These os cillations roughly satisfy the Walen relation and could be due to inci dence of the interplanetary Alfven waves along the IMF-type field line s that fill the plasma sheet beyond the distant neutral line.