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The magnetopause deformation indicated by fast cold ion motion
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  • Wenlong Guo,
  • Binbin Tang,
  • Qing-He Zhang,
  • Wenya Li,
  • Zhongwei Yang,
  • Tianran Sun,
  • Jiuqi Ma,
  • Xiaoxin Zhang,
  • Xiaocheng Guo,
  • Chi Wang
Wenlong Guo
Institute of Space Sciences, Shangdong University
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Binbin Tang
National Space Science Center, CAS

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Qing-He Zhang
Institute of Space Sciences, Shangdong University
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Wenya Li
National Space Science Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences
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Zhongwei Yang
State Key Laboratory of Space Weather, National space science center
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Tianran Sun
National Space Science Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences
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Jiuqi Ma
University of Science and Technology of China
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Xiaoxin Zhang
China Meteorological Administration
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Xiaocheng Guo
National Space Science Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences
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Chi Wang
National Space Science Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences
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Abstract

The magnetopause deformation due to the upstream magnetosheath pressure perturbations is important to understand the solar wind - magnetosphere coupling process, but how to identify such events from in-situ spacecraft observations is still challenging. In this study, we investigate magnetopause crossing events with fast-moving cold ions in the magnetosphere from Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) observations, and find when fast-moving cold ions are present at the magnetopause, they are closely associated with the magnetopause deformation, which is featured by fast magnetopause motion and significant magnetopause normal deflection from model predictions. Therefore, fast-moving cold ions can be a useful indicator to search for magnetopause deformation events. By integrating the cold ion speed, the inferred magnetopause deformation amplitude varies from 0.2 to ∼ 2.5 RE. Further statistics indicate that such magnetopause deformation events prefer to occur under quasi-radial interplanetary magnetic field and fast solar wind conditions, suggesting high-speed magnetosheath jets could be one direct cause of magnetopause deformations.
21 Oct 2023Submitted to ESS Open Archive
27 Oct 2023Published in ESS Open Archive