EGU21-8953
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-8953
EGU General Assembly 2021
© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Pressure Profiles in the Magnetosheath under Different Solar Wind Conditions 

Gilbert Pi, Zdeněk Němeček, and Jana Šafránková
Gilbert Pi et al.

Magnetosheath is a major interface region between the solar wind and magnetosphere. The changes of solar wind parameters after the bow shock crossing and the phenomena near the magnetopause are intensively studied. However, spatial profiles of different pressure components across the magnetosheath are not comprehensively studied yet, especially in observations. The highly fluctuating sheath, variations of upstream conditions, and permanent motion of the magnetopause and bow shock complicate observational studies. In the present contribution, we use two different methods to obtain a typical magnetosheath profile under specific upstream conditions. One is the superposed epoch analysis of complete crossing events observed by the THEMIS mission. The second method is relocated the THEMIS observations into a normalized magnetosheath coordinate. By contrast to the result of MHD modeling, we found only a very weak difference between pressure profiles for southward and northward IMF. Our results show that the thermal pressure exhibits a peak near the magnetopause that is more pronounced under southward than under northward IMF. The magnetic pressures have a similar trend for both IMF polarities but the magnetic pressure increases faster toward the magnetopause for northward IMF than it does for southward IMF.

How to cite: Pi, G., Němeček, Z., and Šafránková, J.: Pressure Profiles in the Magnetosheath under Different Solar Wind Conditions , EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-8953, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-8953, 2021.

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