Deformations at Earth's dayside magnetopause under quasi-radial IMF: implications for the SMILE soft X-ray imaging

Abstract

The Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer (SMILE) is a Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) and European Space Agency (ESA) collaborative science mission. Primary goals are investigating the dynamic response of the Earth’s magnetosphere to the solar wind (SW) impact via simultaneous in situ SW/magnetosheath plasma and magnetic field measurements, X-Ray images of the magnetosheath and magnetic cusps, and UV images of global auroral distributions.  Recently, soft X-ray emissions from SW charge exchange (SWCX) at Earth’s magnetosphere has been investigated using XMM-Newton observations (Zhang et al., ApJL, 2022). Their results reveal that heavy ions (e.g., O7+) have relatively discrete and intense spectral lines, which can be more easily captured by soft-X ray instrument. Another striking point is that the fitted X-ray flux emitted by the ion line is sensitive and correlated to some physical values of SW bulk speed and density. To obtain physical quantities self-consistently for SW heavy ions, a three-dimensional global hybrid model has been developing. Based on Zoltan, ParGrid, and Corsair, we have developing a three-dimensional hybrid model of the terrestrial magnetosphere combining several modules: e.g., open boundaries with different particle injectors, cold plasma model for the inner magnetosphere, magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling module, and vtk format IO etc. In this poster, we will present preliminary results on the global dynamics of proton and heavy ions from the Earth’s bow shock all the way to the magnetopause under quasi-radial IMF conditions. This research focuses on 3-D profiles of key physical parameters, such as the magnetosheath ion pressure and high speed jets. And the resulting deformation of the magnetopause also will be discussed. Heavy ion behaviors at above dynamic/kinetic structures may play important roles in their soft X-ray emission during the interaction between SW heavy ions and the Earth’s exosphere (mainly populated by neutral hydrogen atoms). Thence, we will represent and compare the soft-X ray imaging calculated by heavy-ion data and proton data, respectively.