In our study, we looked at the boundary between the Earth's magnetic field and the interplanetary magnetic field emitted by the Sun, called the magnetopause. While other studies focus on the magnetopause motion near Earth's equator, we have studied it in polar regions. The motion of the magnetopause is faster towards the Earth than towards the Sun. We also found that the occurrence of unusual magnetopause locations is due to similar solar influences in the equatorial and in the polar regions.

In this paper we have used Cluster EDI data in combination with the CODIF cusp dataset from Slapak et al. (2017) to obtain parallel and convection velocities for oxygen ions; 69 % of total oxygen outflow from the high-altitude cusps escapes the magnetosphere on average; 50 % escapes tailward beyond the distant X-line. The oxygen capture-versus-escape ratio is highly dependent on geomagnetic conditions. During active conditions, the majority of oxygen outflow is convected to the plasma sheet.

This paper describes "beam tracking", a new technology for measuring velocity distributions in the solar wind with a plasma spectrometer, that allows the order of magnitude speedup in data acquisition needed for studying ion-scale turbulence. The basic idea is that the spectrometer should only sample the energy–elevation–azimuth range where the solar wind is expected to reside. The paper shows how the technique can be implemented and illustrates its performance and robustness through simulation.

In a simulation study of the downward current region of the aurora, i.e. where electrons are accelerated upward, double layers are seen to form at low altitude and move upward until they are disrupted at altitudes of ten thousand kilometres or thereabouts. When one double layer is disrupted a new one forms below, and the process repeats itself. The repeated demise and reformation allows ions to flow upward without passing through the double layers that otherwise would have kept them down.

In this paper, we simulate the plasma on a magnetic field line above the aurora. Initially, about half of the acceleration voltage is concentrated in a thin double layer at a few thousand km altitude. When the voltage is lowered, electrons trapped between the double layer and the magnetic mirror are released. In the process we see formation of electron beams and phase space holes. A temporary reversal of the polarity of the double layer is also seen as well as hysteresis effects in its position.