Influence of ion outflow in coupled geospace simulations: 1. Physics‐based ion outflow model development and sensitivity study

Abstract

AbstractWe describe a coupled geospace model that includes causally regulated ion outflow from a physics‐based ionosphere/polar wind model. The model two‐way couples the multifluid Lyon‐Fedder‐Mobarry magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) model to the ionosphere/polar wind model (IPWM). IPWM includes the H+ and O+ polar wind as well as a phenomenological treatment of energetic O+ accelerated by wave‐particle interactions (WPI). Alfvénic Poynting flux from the MHD simulation causally regulates the ion acceleration. The wave‐particle interactions (WPI) model has been tuned and validated with comparisons to particle‐in‐cell simulations and empirical relationships derived from Fast Auroral Snapshot satellite data. IPWM captures many aspects of the ion outflow that empirical relationships miss. First, the entire coupled model conserves mass between the ionospheric and magnetospheric portions, meaning the amount of outflow produced is limited by realistic photochemistry in the ionosphere. Second, under intense driving conditions, the outflow becomes flux limited by what the ionosphere is capable of providing. Furthermore, the outflows produced exhibit realistic temporal and spatial delays relative to the magnetospheric energy inputs. The coupled model provides a flexible way to explore the impacts of dynamic heavy ion outflow on the coupled geospace system. Some of the example simulations presented exhibit internally driven sawtooth oscillations associated with the outflow, and the properties of these oscillations are analyzed further in a companion paper.