Structure and location of the terrestrial plasma sheet as observed by the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX)

In addition to its prime mission of imaging the heliosphere's interaction with the local interstellar medium, the combination of the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) mission parameters and requirements (highly eccentric equatorial earth orbit, highly sensitive energetic neutral atom (ENA) instruments, and extensive background removal techniques) also provide an excellent opportunity to observe ENA emissions from the Earth's magnetosphere for long periods of time and from distances up to ~50 earth radii. IBEX views the magnetosphere from the side observing continuous ~7° x 360° vertical swaths of the sky at a resolution of ~15 s per full rotation, and covers an energy range between ~0.01 and ~6 keV. These swaths are used to construct composite ENA images for different solar wind and interplanetary magnetic field conditions. Using a large set of magnetospheric ENA observations (~200 orbits), we examine the location and dynamical structure of the Earth's plasma sheet for different dipole tilt angles, IMF polarities, and solar wind inputs. In particular, we investigate the plasma sheet hinging point location, the dynamics of the horizontal and vertical plasma sheet flows, and the shape of the plasma sheet core to distances of ~20 RE down the tail.