Intermittent Reconnection, Flux Ropes and Vortices Generation at the Dayside Magnetopause

In the presence of a nonzero IMF B_y component and of southward IMF B_z, magnetic neutral points are formed near the flanks of the magnetosphere. The relative role of almost anti-parallel merging near neutral points vs. component reconnection at the subsolar stagnation point is a matter of ongoing discussions. To address this problem we employ global MHD model BATSRUS with adaptive mesh refinement. We perform simulations of magnetopause dynamics after IMF turning from an initial northward orientation to IMF clock angles 90 < θ < 180. An analysis of the reconnected magnetic flux budget showed that reconnection occurs along the extended area at magnetopause surface. We found that magnetopause surface become unstable and demonstrated formation of pressure bubbles, flux ropes (FTEs), and traveling density depletion regions. Vortices generation in the vicinity on magnetic neutral points at the flanks is also demonstrated. We discuss how these results depend on grid resolution.