Dynamical simulations of the plasmapause and the plasmasphere

Plasmapause and plasmasphere simulations have been developed at BIRA-IASB to better understand the physical mechanisms implicated in this region of the inner magnetosphere. The simulations include convection and co-rotation and can also take into account the interchange mechanism for the formation of the plasmapause. The simulations show an inward motion of the plasmapause when the geomagnetic activity increases, in good agreement with satellite observations. A plume is formed in the afternoon and dusk Magnetic Local Time (MLT) sectors during geomagnetic storms. Comparisons with observations of different satellites including IMAGE, CRRES, CLUSTER, THEMIS and KAGUYA show an excellent agreement with the simulations including corotation, convection with E5D electric field and interchange. These simulations can be run for any date on the space weather portal www.spaceweather.eu.