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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Astron. Space Sci.

Sec. Space Physics

Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fspas.2025.1679376

This article is part of the Research TopicVariability in the Solar Wind and its Impact on the Coupled Magnetosphere-Ionosphere-Thermosphere System, Volume IIView all articles

Magnetospheric and ionospheric vortices response to negative solar wind dynamic pressure pulse

Provisionally accepted
Huayu  ZhaoHuayu Zhao1Huigen  YangHuigen Yang2*Ze-Jun  HuZe-Jun Hu2Dehong  HuangDehong Huang2Bin  LiBin Li2Beichen  ZhangBeichen Zhang2Jianjun  LiuJianjun Liu2
  • 1Shandong University, Weihai, Weihai, China
  • 2Polar Research Institute of China, Shanghai, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

In this work, we present two individual cases showing that a negative solar wind dynamic pressure pulse can lead to magnetospheric decompression and generate a clockwise vortex in the duskside magnetosphere. In response to this decompression, a magnetospheric vortex in the duskside sector was observed by the Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms (THEMIS) mission. Minimum variance analysis (MVA) of the mass flux, together with the corresponding equivalent ionospheric currents (EICs), indicates that the magnetospheric vortex rotated clockwise which is opposite to the typical direction of vortices induced by positive solar wind dynamic pressure pulses. The associated clockwise EICs vortex suggests that the magnetospheric vortex was connected to the ionospheric vortex via downward field-aligned currents (FACs). Time series analysis of the EICs further reveals that the vortex propagated eastward, consistent with the tailward motion of the magnetospheric vortex. Moreover, the occurrence of the clockwise EIC vortex at lower latitudes, together with the THEMIS satellite location, indicates that the magnetospheric vortices associated with traveling convection vortices (TCVs) are generated not at the magnetopause, but within the nightside magnetosphere.

Keywords: Dynamic pressure pulse, vortex, field-aligned currents, Equivalent ionospheric currents, eic vortex

Received: 04 Aug 2025; Accepted: 07 Oct 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Zhao, Yang, Hu, Huang, Li, Zhang and Liu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Huigen Yang, yanghuigen@pric.org.cn

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