Scaling and Characterization of Magnetopause Boundary as a Function of Dipole Moment

Details Scaling and Characterization of Magnetopause Boundary as a Function of Dipole Moment Scaling and Characterization of Magnetopause Boundary as a Function of Dipole Moment

Apr 2003

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2003eaeja.....4781o&link_type=abstract

EGS - AGU - EUG Joint Assembly, Abstracts from the meeting held in Nice, France, 6 - 11 April 2003, abstract #4781

Physics

Scientific paper

Recently, we have utilized 2-D electromagnetic hybrid (fluid electrons, particle ions) simulations to investigate the nature of solar wind interaction with magnetic dipoles of various strength. The results have established the existence of a variety of dipolar magnetospheres with physical sizes starting at a few tens of ion intertial length and increasing with the dipole strength. These magnetospheres have a simple structure (e.g. a whistler wake) at low levels of dipole strength and become more complex with increasing level of magnetization and eventually exhibit terrestrial like structure. This occurs when the distance of the point at which solar wind ram pressure and the magnetic pressure are balanced is about 20 ion inertial length. Given that the size of the simulated magnetospheres range from being comparable to ion kinetic scales to being much larger, it is evident that the nature of the magnetopause in each of these systems is not the same and that different physical processes are introduced as the scales allow. For example, the process of magnetic reconnection is found to be operative only when the system size is much larger than ion scales. Similarly, the formation of discontinuities and surface waves require the magnetopause boundary to be larger than a certain size. In this talk, we review the nature of the magnetopause boundary found in the simulated magnetospheres and discuss its scaling characteristics. Implications of these results for planetary magnetospheres in general and Mercury in particular, with reference to Mariner 10 observations, are also discussed.

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