Three-Dimensional MHD Simulations of the Earth's Magnetosphere on Feb. 9-10, 1995
for Northward Interplanetary Magnetic Field and Comparison
of the Lobe Field with Geotail Observations
X. Shao,1 P. N. Guzdar,2 K. Papadopoulos,1 C. C. Goodrich,1 A. S. Sharma,1
G. M. Milikh,1 M. J. Wiltberger,3 and J. G. Lyon3
1. Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742
2. Institute for Plasma Research, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742
3. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire
Geophysical Research Letters 28, 3835-3838 (2001)
Abstract. Three-dimensional Global magnetohydrodynamic simulations of the quiet-time magnetosphere are compared to data obtained from the Geotail satellite. For the specific event on Feb. 9-10, 1995 when the interplanetary magnetic field was quiet northward and Geotail was in the vicinity of the equatorial plane and around x=-20 RE, the lobe field was found to be steady for 2.5 hours. During the time interval between UT 00:30, Feb. 10 and UT 3:00, Feb. 10, the lobe field Bz is nearly zero and Bz is around 5 nT which is comparable to the Bz (about 5 nT) of the IMF. This is consistent with predictions from four recent steady-state simulations [Guzdar et al, 2001]. Also performing real event simulations using the global MHD code we find that the time scale for the temporal evolution and magnitude of the various components of the lobe field agree well with Geotail observations.