Deformations at Earth's dayside magnetopause during quasi-radial IMF conditions: Global kinetic simulations and soft X-ray imaging

Abstract: The Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer (SMILE) is an ESA-CAS joint mission. Primary goals are investigating the dynamic response of the Earth's magnetosphere to the solar wind (SW) impact via simultaneous in situ magnetosheath (MS) plasma and magnetic field measurements, X-Ray images of the magnetosheath and magnetic cusps, and UV images of global auroral distributions. Magnetopause (MP) deformations associated with MS high speed jets (HSJs) under a quasi-parallel interplanetary magnetic field condition are studied using a three-dimensional (3-D) global hybrid simulation. Soft X-ray intensity calculated based on both physical quantities of solar wind proton and oxygen ions is compared. We obtain key findings concerning deformations at the MP: (1) MP deformations are highly coherent with the MS HSJs generated at the quasiparallel region of the bow shock, (2) X-ray intensities estimated using solar wind H+ and self-consistent O7+ ions are consistent with each other, (3) Visual spacecraft are employed to check the discrimination ability for capturing MP deformations on Lunar and polar orbits, respectively. The SMILE spacecraft on the polar orbit could be expected to provide opportunities for capturing the global geometry of the magnetopause in the equatorial plane. A striking point is that SMILE has the potential to capture small-scale MP deformations and MS transients, such as HSJs, at medium altitudes on its orbit.