Magnetotail effects of slanted solar wind pressure discontinuities Original Research Article

From case study of carefully selected planar discontinuities we got clear evidence that orientation of the Solar Wind Discontinuity seriously affects timing of compressions/rarefactions propagating in the magnetotail. In agreement with a simple kinematic scheme we confirm that for slanted discontinuity time differences up to several minutes may arise depending on Y,Z coordinates of the spacecraft at the same X position. These effects are important when studying the tail dynamics and substorm triggering problem.