Articles | Volume 18, issue 2
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-511-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-511-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
The Vlasiator 5.2 ionosphere – coupling a magnetospheric hybrid-Vlasov simulation with a height-integrated ionosphere model
Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
Yann Pfau-Kempf
Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
Hongyang Zhou
Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
Liisa Juusola
Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
Finnish Meteorological Institute, Helsinki, Finland
Abiyot Workayehu
Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
Fasil Kebede
Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
Konstantinos Papadakis
Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
Maxime Grandin
Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
Markku Alho
Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
Markus Battarbee
Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
Maxime Dubart
Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
Leo Kotipalo
Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
Arnaud Lalagüe
Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
Jonas Suni
Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
Konstantinos Horaites
Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
Minna Palmroth
Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
Finnish Meteorological Institute, Helsinki, Finland
Model code and software
Vlasiator: Hybrid-Vlasov Simulation Code Minna Palmroth and the Vlasiator Team https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3640593
Vlasiator 5.2 Minna Palmroth and the Vlasiator Team https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.6628655
fmihpc/analysator: v0.9 (v0.9) Markus Battarbee et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4462515
Short summary
Vlasiator is a kinetic space plasma model that simulates the behavior of plasma, solar wind and magnetic fields in near-Earth space. So far, these simulations have been run without any interaction with the ionosphere, the uppermost layer of Earth's atmosphere. In this paper, we present the new methods that add an ionospheric electrodynamics model to Vlasiator, coupling it with the existing methods and presenting new simulation results of how space plasma and Earth's ionosphere interact.
Vlasiator is a kinetic space plasma model that simulates the behavior of plasma, solar wind and...