Plasmasphere

This dynamic plasmasphere model provides a three dimensional dynamic kinetic model of the plasmasphere (Journal Geophys. Res., 113, A10209,doi: 10.1029/2008ja013060, 2008). The two-dimensional plasmapause locationis shown by dynamic simulations in terms of radial distance (r) and magnetic local time (MLT). The core of the plasmasphere is obtained from the kinetic exospheric approach assuming a kappa velocity distribution function for the particles. The relative abundance of trapped particles is constrained in such way that the density profiles correspond to ISEE observations in the geomagnetic equatorial plane. The position of the plasmapause is determined by the interchange instability mechanism using the convection electric field model E5D. It is a function of the level of geomagnetic activity level index Kp observed during the date given as input and 24 hours before.

As input, you have to give the Kp values that have been observed during the date of interest and the day before (and the day after for the visualization movies).

As output, you obtain traject.dat (and fkp.dat) that is read by anim2.pro (an IDL routine) to give the movies. When the kp index is equal to zero, no plasmapause position is given during this period.