EUV emissions from solar wind charge exchange in the Earth's magnetosheath: Three-dimensional global hybrid simulation

Abstract

In this paper, a three-dimensional (3-D) global hybrid simulation code and a 3-D geocoronal hydrogen model are used to systematically study the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) emissions at 30.4nm produced by solar wind charge exchange (SWCX) in the Earth's magnetosheath, associated with different solar wind-interplanetary magnetic field (SW-IMF) conditions and different imaging perspectives. We have found that the EUV emission intensities in the magnetosheath are highly variable from several mR to similar to 1200 mR and increase with the flow speed, the density, the temperature, and the He2+/H+ density ratio of the solar wind; the northward IMF leads to a minimum emission in the magnetosheath, whereas the southward IMF generates a maximum emission; with the increase of the magnitude of IMF, the emission pattern in the nightside splits from single field-aligned shape into a butterfly shape around the magnetic equator; and the EUV emissions vary with the imaging positions, reflecting different latitudinal and longitudinal information of the magnetosheath. It is noted that the SWCX EUV emissions in the magnetosheath for highly disturbed solar wind conditions should be considered in processing the Moon-based plasmaspheric EUV images. We suggest that EUV imaging of the global magnetosheath requires an EUV imager with large field-of-view, high-sensitivity, large dynamic range, and low intrinsic dark count rate. This investigation could provide us with an overall understanding on SWCX EUV emissions in the magnetosheath which can potentially be used to image the global magnetosheath to study the solar wind-magnetosphere coupling in the future.