We compared trapped outer radiation belt electron fluxes to high-latitude precipitating electron fluxes during two interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs) with opposite magnetic cloud rotation. The electron response had many similarities and differences between the two events, indicating that different acceleration mechanisms acted. Van Allen Probe data were used for trapped electron flux measurements, and Polar Operational Environmental Satellites were used for precipitating flux data.

The Harris–Fadeev–Kan–Manankova family of exact two-dimensional equilibria is generalized to reproduce the slow decrease of the normal magnetic component in the tailward direction, and the magnetotail current sheet bending and shifting in the vertical plane, arising from the Earth dipole tilting and the solar wind nonradial propagation. The analytical solution is found to fit the empirical T96 model, especially, at distances beyond 10–15 Earth radii at high levels of magnetospheric activity.

A number of current systems exist in the Earth's magnetosphere. It is very difficult to identify local measurements as belonging to a specific current system. Therefore, there are different definitions of supposedly the same current, leading to unnecessary controversy. This study presents a robust collection of these definitions of current systems in geospace, particularly in the near-Earth nightside magnetosphere, as viewed from a variety of observational and computational analysis techniques.

We investigate the precipitated-to-trapped flux ratio patterns near the proton isotropy boundary (IB) using NOAA-POES observations. For 30 and 80keV proton energies, we found only 31% of events showing the dispersion pattern predicted by the non-adiabatic scattering in the tail current sheet. Most frequent pattern had no measureable IB energy dispersion (63%); structured IBs with a few Jprec/Jtrap dropouts were also usual (60%). Roles of current sheet and wave-induced scattering are discussed.