Using a machine learning technique called echo state network (ESN), we have developed an emulator to model the physics-based global magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulation results of REPPU (REProduce Plasma Universe) code. The inputs are the solar wind time series with date and time, and the outputs are the time series of the ionospheric auroral current system in the form of two-dimensional (2D) patterns of field-aligned current, potential, and conductivity. We mediated a principal component analysis for a dimensionality reduction of the 2D map time series. In this study, we report the latest upgraded Surrogate Model for REPPU Auroral Ionosphere version 2 (SMRAI2) with significantly improved resolutions in time and space (5 min in time, ~1 degrees in latitude, and 4.5 degrees in longitude), where the dipole tilt angle is also newly added as one of the input parameters to reproduce the seasonal dependence. The fundamental dependencies of the steady-state potential and field-aligned current patterns on the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) directions are consistent with those obtained from empirical models. Further, we show that the ESN-based emulator can output the AE index so that we can evaluate the performance of the dynamically changing results, comparing with the observed AE index. Since the ESN-based emulator runs a million times faster than the REPPU simulation, it is promising that we can utilize the emulator for the real-time space weather forecast of the auroral current system as well as to obtain large-number ensembles to achieve future data assimilation-based forecast.

Local vortex-structured auroral spiral and a large-scale transpolar arc (TPA) were contemporaneously observed by the Polar ultraviolet imager (UVI), when a substorm almost recovered. The TPA grew along the dawnside auroral oval from the nightside to the dayside (oval-aligned TPA), and a chain of multiple auroral spots and spiral were located azimuthally near the poleward edge of the nightside auroral oval. Contemporaneous appearances of the TPA and the auroral spiral can be seen after the spiral appeared alone. Polar also detected the oval-aligned TPA and another dawnside TPA with the nightside end distorted toward the premidnight sector (J-shaped TPA) before and after the spiral’s formation, respectively. To examine these associated magnetotail structures, we performed global magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations, based on two different types of code, BAT-S-RUS and improved REPPU, and examined how the field-aligned current (FAC) profiles varied in association with changes of the auroral form to TPA and/or auroral spiral. Global MHD simulations with the two different types of code can reproduce the TPAs and the associated FAC structures in the magnetotail. The auroral spiral and its nightside FAC profile, however, were not formed in both simulations, suggesting that its formation process cannot be treated within an MHD framework but is closely related to some kinetic process. When the J-shaped TPA and the auroral spiral contemporaneously appeared, the two MHD simulations could not reproduce the TPA, spiral and their associated magnetotail FAC structures, also advocating that a kinetic effect related to the spiral formation might prevent the TPA occurrence.