Parametric study of magnetospheric sawtooth events using a kinetic tail reconnection model embedded into a global MHD simulation

Earth's magnetosphere and ionosphere have various responses to different solar wind driving. One of these response modes is termed sawtooth events, which are named for their characteristic appearance of multiple quasi-periodic intervals of slow increase of proton energy fluxes in the geosynchronous region. In this work, we will use a two-way coupled MHD with Embedded Particle-in-Cell (MHD-EPIC) model to study sawtooth events. The PIC region covers the tail reconnection sites ensuring that the kinetic nature of the reconnection process is properly captured. Our preliminary results show that sawtooth events are naturally generated by the kinetic tail reconnection dynamics. We don't need to invoke outflow from the ionosphere unlike previous work by Brambles et al. 2011. Multiple solar wind parameters will be tested to find their relationship with the sawtooth event properties (oscillation period, magnetic inclination angle etc.). The physical process of the sawtooth event, in particular the energy loading-unloading mechanism, will be investigated by utilizing the global MHD-EPIC simulations.