Ion penetration into the magnetosphere through the turbulent magnetopause Original Research Article

We modeled numerically ion motion in the magnetopause current sheet (MCS) in the presence of magnetic turbulence with power law spectrum. As a first step of our analysis, we calculated the number of particles penetrating into the magnetosphere in dependence on the fluctuation level of the turbulence and magnetic field shear parameter. We also registered number of particles reflected from the magnetopause to the magnetosheath escaping from the flanks and remaining trapped in the MCS. The number of penetrating particles appeared to be strongly dependent on the fluctuation level, but not on the magnetic field shear parameter. For the highest fluctuation level the number of penetrating particles does not exceed 20% of the total number of launched particles.