A new approach for magnetospheric substorms

In a previous report we had started a systematic study of the ballooning modes as the natural waves of the magneto spheric turbulence, substorm and reconnection. After many new results following from the very high mirror ratio of the magnetospheric plasma, summarized in this note, we explain the fundamental role of ion cyclotron instabilities generated by the closure of confinement currents, by field-aligned currents in a three-dimensional (3D) configurations resulting from the growth phase and (or) ballooning modes. These instabilities destroy the current system, dipolarize the magnetic field and are consequently the non linear missing piece of substorm phenomenology. An indirect proof of this theory (apart from observational evidence) is found in the fast heating of electrons, the so-called 'dispersionless injection' and a smaller effect on the proton population (diffusion coefficients are in the minutes time scale for protons and seconds for electrons!). This magnetospheric mechanism is very likely operating in solar flares and is in fact an added stone to a 3D time-dependent reconnection and acceleration.