Kinetic Modeling of the Impact of Solar Wind Discontinuities on the Magnetopause

An important step in comprehending the effects of solar wind structures on the magnetosphere is to develop an understanding of their impact on the dayside magnetopause.  While most of the time global magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) models describe adequately the large-scale effects of solar wind structures on the magnetopause, recent spacecraft observations in the near Earth solar wind indicate that solar wind discontinuities have plasma features that are often not accurately described by MHD.  In this presentation, we report our progress in gaining a comprehensive understanding of kinetic processes occurring at the magnetopause as solar wind structures impact the dayside magnetosphere. Our approach combines implicit PIC simulations with global MHD simulations of the solar wind-magnetosphere-ionosphere system. The global simulation sets the overall configuration of the magnetosphere, while fields and plasma moments of a sub-domain of the global simulation are used to set initial and boundary conditions of the PIC code. Results are discussed in the context of spacecraft observations.