Pre‐Existing Plasmaspheric Density Structure
Abstract We perform a basic model experiment: we run two nearly identical plasmapause simulations, differing only by their initial conditions. The first run contains initial fine‐scale and mesoscale structure, and the second run is initialized with a featureless, circular plasmapause. We show that residual or pre‐existing density structure can have an important impact on plasmaspheric dynamics.
Authors
- M. F. Thomsen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0140-9265)
- J. Goldstein (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6715-7083)
Institutions
- Southwest Research Institute (US)
- Planetary Science Institute (US)
- The University of Texas at San Antonio (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Geophysical Research Letters
- Published
- 2026-07-18
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1029/2026gl124428
- Primary Topic
- Ionosphere and magnetosphere dynamics
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- Southwest Research Institute