Relationship between the ionospheric conductance, field aligned current, and magnetopause geometry: Global MHD simulations

The role of the ionospheric conductance in the solar wind-magnetosphere coupling is studied using global MHD simulations. The simulations with varying conductance and a constant solar wind input show that the field-aligned currents, whose magnitude depends on the ionospheric conductance, affect the size of the magnetopause at the flanks by increasing the local magnetic pressure and thus altering the surface equilibrium at the magnetopause. A current system that generates the magnetic stresses required to account for the location and geometrical structure of the magnetosphere observed in the simulations is proposed.