Particle Acceleration and Transport in the Magnetotail

An outstanding problem of magnetospheric physics is to determine the energization of particles transported from the nightside to the dayside. To address this research problem, we leverage our simulation capabilities by combining three different simulation techniques: global magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations, large-scale kinetic (LSK) particle tracing simulations, and large-scale particle in cell (PIC) simulations. First, we model a magnetotail reconnection event using an iPic3D simulation with initial and boundary conditions given by a global MHD simulation. The iPic3D simulation system includes the region of fast outflows emanating from the reconnection site that drives the formation of dipolarization fronts.Then, we follow millions of test particles that exit the iPic3D system using the electromagnetic fields from the MHD simulation as they convect to the dayside and quantify the different acceleration and transport mechanisms.