Progress of the SMILE Modeling Working Group

The Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer (SMILE) is an ESA–CAS joint mission aiming to provide the first global soft X-ray images of the dayside magnetosphere through observations of solar wind charge exchange (SWCX) emission. A key objective of SMILE is to continuously monitor large-scale magnetospheric boundaries, such as the magnetopause, under varying solar wind conditions using the Soft X-ray Imager (SXI). The SMILE Modeling Working Group (MWG) coordinates a range of activities aimed at supporting the scientific exploitation of SXI observations. These include, among others, the generation of simulated data products that are representative of those expected from the SXI processing pipeline, as well as the development and testing of analysis strategies for boundary identification. The simulations are based on emissivity cubes derived from global simulation models and incorporate instrumental effects such as background components and vignetting. As part of this effort, a community-wide analysis exercise, named the SMILE SXI Grand Analysis Challenge (GAC), has been initiated using a single-orbit SXI simulation with one-minute temporal resolution. The aim is to assess the capability of different analysis techniques to extract the time-dependent location of the magnetopause from simulated SXI images and to evaluate the suitability of the current data products for this purpose. The status and preliminary outcomes of the MWG activities, including the GAC, will be presented.