Mating of two current circuits – A new type of plasma instability

In the context of the onset of substorms, observations had revealed the frequent occurrence of an unidentified trigger process. Inspections of such onsets had led to the discovery that high-beta plasma at the magnetosphere-tail boundary became suddenly unstable when so-called auroral streamers lined up closely with that boundary. The manifestation was the appearance of bead-like auroral structures preceding the auroral breakup and subject to nonlinear growth. Highly resolved video coverage of a few events showed that the fast moving beads moved opposite to the convective motions on either side. This led to the proposal [Haerendel & Frey 2021] that the trigger of the instability was the formation of a new current circuit, by a non-MHD process, in the gap between the two adjacent circuits of the high-beta plasma boundary and the auroral streamer. Observational evidence and a model of the current structure will be presented.