End-to-end study of the transfer of energy from magnetosheath ion precipitation to the cusp

This paper describes a study of the effects of unstable magnetosheath distributions on the cusp ionosphere. A semi-kinetic model followed by a 2.5D particle-in-cell (PIC) model served as an end-to-end numerical system to study the evolved distributions from precipitation due to reconnection and, then secondly, the energy transfer into the high-latitude ionosphere based on these solar wind/magnetosheath inputs. Using inputs of several representative examples of magnetosheath injections, waves were generated at the lower hybrid frequency and energy transferred to the ionospheric electrons and ions. The resulting wave spectra and ion and electron particle heating was analyzed.