Including Kinetic Ion Effects in the Coupled Global Ionospheric Outflow Solution

Abstract

We present a new expansion of the Polar Wind Outflow Model to include kinetic ions using the particleâ inâ cell (PIC) approach with Monte Carlo collisions. This implementation uses the original hydrodynamic solution at low altitudes for efficiency and couples to the kinetic solution at higher altitudes to account for kinetic effects important for ionospheric outflow. The modeling approach also includes waveâ particle interactions, suprathermal electrons, and a hybrid parallel computing approach combining shared and distributed memory paralellization. The resulting model is thus a comprehensive, global, model of ionospheric outflow that can be run efficiently on large supercomputing clusters. We demonstrate the model’s capability to study a range of problems starting with the comparison of kinetic and hydrodynamic solutions along a single field line in the sunlit polar cap, and progressing to the altitude evolution of the ion conic distribution in the cusp region. The interplay between convection and the cusp on the global outflow solution is also examined. Finally, we demonstrate the impact of these new model features on the magnetosphere by presenting the first twoâ way coupled ionospheric outflowâ magnetosphere calculation including kinetic ion effects.Key PointsWe present a global ionospheric outflow model with kinetic ions and waveâ particle interactionsThe code uses a hybrid parallelization scheme to achieve fast executionIt is the first twoâ way coupled global kinetic outflow code coupled to a multifluid MHD magnetosphere