Interaction of solar wind with the magnetopause-boundary layer and generation of magnetic impulse events

Abstract

The transport of mass, momentum, energy and waves from the solar wind to the Earth's magnetosphere takes place in the magnetopause-boundary layer region. Various plasma processes that may occur in this region have been proposed and studied. In this paper, we present a brief review of the plasma processes in the dayside magnetopause-boundary layer. These processes include 1. (1) flux transfer events at the dayside magnetopause, 2. (2) formation of plasma vortices in the low-latitude boundary layer by the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability and coupling to the polar ionosphere, 3. (3) the response of the magnetopause to the solar wind dynamic pressure pulses and 4. (4) the impulsive penetration of solar wind plasma filaments through the dayside magnetopause into the magnetospheric boundary layer. Through the coupling of the magnetopause-boundary layer to the polar ionosphere, those above processes may lead to occurrence of magnetic impulse events observed in the high-latitude stations.