Magnetopause and bow shock models with machine learning

The magnetopause (MP) and the bow shock (BS) are the two boundaries bounding the magnetosheath, the region between the magnetosphere and the solar wind. Their position and shape depend on the upstream solar wind and interplanetary magnetic field conditions.

Predicting their shape and position is the starting point of many subsequent studies of processes controlling the coupling between the Earth’s magnetosphere and its interplanetary environment. We now have at our disposal an important amount of data from a multitude of spacecraft missions allowing for good spatial coverage, as well as algorithms based on statistical learning to automatically detect the two boundaries. From the data of 9 satellites over 20 years, we identified around 19000 crossings of the BS and 36000 crossings of the MP. They were used, together with their associated upstream conditions, to train a regression model to predict the shape and position of the boundaries. 

Preliminary results indicate that the obtained models outperform analytical models without making simplifying assumptions on the geometry and the dependency over control parameters.