Low latitude boundary layer (LLBL) can be found at low latitudes on the whole dayside magnetosphere and along magnetospheric flanks. This layer is filled by magnetosheath-like and magnetospheric plasmas. The LLBL plays a crucial role in the solar wind-magnetosphere coupling. We used measurements of the five THEMIS spacecraft that crossed the dayside LLBL on June 3, 2007. Simultaneous observatio...

[1] Magnetic reconnection at the terrestrial magnetopause is frequently intermittent, leading to the formation of localized reconnected flux bundles referred to as flux transfer events (FTEs). It remains unclear whether the intermittency of the process is intrinsic or arises because of fluctuations of solar wind properties. Here we use Ganymede’s magnetosphere, which is embedded in a background...

[1] Near magnetopause current layers the Polar satellite often detects field-aligned fluxes of >0.5 keV electrons that carry heat flux away from merging sites along inner/outer separatrices between newly opened and closed/interplanetary magnetic flux. Close to separator lines, electron gyrotropy weakens to break trapping on closed field lines of the outer plasma sheet followed by attachment to ...

Monochromatic all-sky imagers at South Pole and other Antarctic stations of the Automatic Geophysical Observatory chain recorded the aurora in the region where the Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms (THEMIS) satellites crossed the dayside magnetopause. In several cases the magnetic field lines threading the satellites when mapped to the atmosphere were inside th...

Lockwood and Davis (1996) present a concise description of magnetopause reconnection pulses, with the claimed support of three types of observations: (1) ̄ux transfer events (FTE), (2) poleward-moving auroral forms on the dayside, and (3) steps in cusp ion dispersion characteristics. However, there are a number of errors and misconceptions in the paper that make their conclusions untenable. They...

Whistler emissions close to the magnetopause on the magnetospheric side are investigated using the four Cluster spacecraft. The waves are found to be generated in thin (electron-scale) sheets moving with the plasma drift velocity. A feature in the electron data coincides with the waves; hot magnetospheric electrons disappear for a few satellite spins. This produces or enhances a temperature ani...

The paper presents a statistical study of magnetic field fluctuations observed by the Cluster spacecraft near the dusk/dawn meridian at the magnetosheath in the vicinity of the magnetopause. We have found that the correlation length of such fluctuations depends on the solar wind speed, distance to the magnetopause and amplitude of magnetic field magnitude fluctuations. The fluctuations with ant...