Ionospheric signatures of a Bursty Bulk Flow in the 6D Vlasiator simulation

Workayehu, Abiyot; Palmroth, Minna; Grandin, Maxime; Juusola, Liisa; Alho, Markku; Zaitsev, Ivan; Koikkalainen, Venla; Horaites, Konstantinos; Pfau-Kempf, Yann; Ganse, Urs; Battarbee, Markus; Suni, Jonas

doi:10.5194/angeo-43-723-2025

Articles | Volume 43, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-43-723-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-43-723-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 43, issue 2

Regular paper

|

25 Nov 2025

Regular paper |

| 25 Nov 2025

Ionospheric signatures of a Bursty Bulk Flow in the 6D Vlasiator simulation

Abiyot Workayehu, Minna Palmroth, Maxime Grandin, Liisa Juusola, Markku Alho, Ivan Zaitsev, Venla Koikkalainen, Konstantinos Horaites, Yann Pfau-Kempf, Urs Ganse, Markus Battarbee, and Jonas Suni

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-43-723-2025-supplement

Data sets

Dataset - etsin.fairdata.fi J. Suni and K. Horaites https://etsin.fairdata.fi/dataset/0ac78c26-145a-4586-9f95-d772078dc370

Model code and software

fmihpc/vlasiator: v5.3.1 Y. Pfau-Kempf et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13752779

fmihpc/analysator: v0.9 M. Battarbee et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4462515

VisIt: An End-User Tool For Visualizing and Analyzing Very Large Data H. Childs et al. https://doi.org/10.1201/b12985

Short summary

This study investigates the ionospheric signatures of a Bursty Bulk Flow in Earth’s magnetotail using a global 6D hybrid-Vlasov simulation coupled with an ionospheric model. The results show that a reconnection-driven Bursty Bulk Flow generates vortices that produce field-aligned currents, which map to the ionosphere with a distinct east–west orientation and exhibit a characteristic westward drift. Variations in ionospheric observables are identified as clear signatures of this flow.