Flux pile-up and plasma depletion at the high latitude dayside magnetopause during southward interplanetary magnetic field: a cluster event study

An event of strong flux pile-up and plasma depletion at the high latitude magnetopause tailward of the cusp has been analyzed based on observations by the suite of Cluster spacecraft. The multi-satellite analysis facilitates the separation of temporal and spatial features and provides a direct estimate for the strength of the plasma depletion layer for this event. A doubling of the magnetic field strength and a forty percent reduction of the density are found. Our analysis shows that roughly half of the total magnetic field increase occurs within 0.6 R-E of the magnetopause and another quarter within a distance of 1.2 R-E. In addition, the plasma depletion signatures exhibit temporal variations which we relate to magnetopause dynamics.