The Storm-Time Injection of Ions into the Inner Magnetosphere: Large-Scale Kinetic Simulations and IMAGE∕HENA Observations

We investigated the injection of ions into the inner magnetosphere during the sudden storm commencement (SSC) of the 28 October 2001 geomagnetic storm by carrying out a large‐scale kinetic particle tracing study of the event. We launched H+ ions from the solar wind and O+ ions from the ionosphere in global time‐dependent electric and magnetic fields obtained from a global magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulation of the storm, and compared our results to those from IMAGE/HENA and the LANL geosynchronous spacecraft 1995‐095. We show that the SSC resulted in a dramatic increase in the density and energy density of both ion species. In addition, our results show an injection of solar wind ions from the dawn flank that is consistent with observations and with previously published results.