The deep planetary magnetotail revisited

Abstract

The magnetotail model of Grzedzielski and Macek (1988) is extended to great distances in the antisolar direction. For typical solar wind parameters at 1 AU and the most probable set of parameters of the model as determined for the ISEE-3 region of 200 earth radii, R(E), the open geotail extends to at least 3000 - 4000 R(E) downstream from earth, where it forms a cavity filled with a dense hot plasma and low magnetic field strengths. The cross section of this cavity in the plane perpendicular to the earth-sun line has dimensions of 300 - 400 R(E) parallel to the ecliptic plane, but only 5 R(E) in the direction normal to the ecliptic. It seems likely that the magnetotail would become filamentary at such distances.