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The Magnetopause, Its Boundary Layers and Pathways to the Magnetotail

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The Dynamic Magnetosphere

Part of the book series: IAGA Special Sopron Book Series ((IAGA,volume 3))

Abstract

We review the current understanding of the dynamics of the Earth’s magnetopause and boundary layers. We describe basic insights and recent advances concerning the main mechanisms that mediate solar wind energy, momentum and plasma transfer into the magnetosphere: magnetic reconnection, the Kelvin–Helmholtz instability and diffusive processes. We also present more global aspects of magnetopause and boundary layer dynamics, focusing specifically on recent studies of global solar wind–magnetosphere coupling and on solar wind plasma pathways to the magnetotail.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the reviewer for his/her constructive comments. CF acknowledges financial support from the UK STFC on the CFSA Rolling Grant. CJF acknowledges support from NASA grant NNX08AD11G. JPE holds an STFC Advanced Fellowship at ICL.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie, Université de Toulouse (UPS), 31028, Toulouse Cedex 4, France

    Benoit Lavraud

  2. Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, UMR, 5277, Toulouse, France

    Benoit Lavraud

  3. Department of Physics, Centre for Fusion, Space and Astrophysics, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK

    Claire Foullon

  4. Department of Physics, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NC, USA

    Charles J. Farrugia

  5. Space Science Center, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NC, USA

    Charles J. Farrugia

  6. The Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College London, London, UK

    Jonathan P. Eastwood

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  1. Benoit Lavraud
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  4. Jonathan P. Eastwood
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Correspondence to Benoit Lavraud .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Spacecraft Engineering, Canadian Space Agency, route de l'Aeroport 6767, St.-Hubert, J3Y 8Y9, Québec, Canada

    William Liu

  2. Astronautical Science (ISAS), Institute of Space &, Yoshinodai 3-1-1, Sagamihara, Kanagawa, 229-8510, Japan

    Masaki Fujimoto

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© 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.

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Lavraud, B., Foullon, C., Farrugia, C.J., Eastwood, J.P. (2011). The Magnetopause, Its Boundary Layers and Pathways to the Magnetotail. In: Liu, W., Fujimoto, M. (eds) The Dynamic Magnetosphere. IAGA Special Sopron Book Series, vol 3. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0501-2_1

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