Cross scale plasma processes: investigating plasma transport and acceleration across the heliosphere with OCHRE, TRACERS, Magnetospheric Multiscale and Voyager 1

Plasma cannot directly transfer across two separate magnetic boundaries. This leads to the formation of unique phenomena to allow for energy transfer and acceleration across these boundaries. At the boundary between the solar wind and Earth’s geomagnetic field energy transfer is achieved through two main processes. The first is solar wind deposition to the low altitude ionized atmosphere through the polar cusp, a gap between the dayside and nightside geomagnetic field lines. The second is particle acceleration in the Earth nightside equatorial field lines. At the boundary between the solar wind and the interstellar magnetic field, a separate process is observed again to accelerate particles near this boundary. This work details ongoing effort to characterize these acceleration processes.