Real Time Magnetic Field Line Tracing In The Magnetosphere Via Adaptive Error Bounded Integration

Abstract

Field line tracing is one of the fundamental computational tools used in the study of the magnetosphere, which helps in many areas including footprint mapping, connectivity analysis and real-time visualisation. This note describes an implementation approach to error-bounded adaptive integration of the field line differential equation (ODE), where an embedded Runge-Kutta pair is used in conjunction with event detection, allowing robust localisation of footprint locations on spacecraft. The method is validated against an analytic dipole field model as well as an international geomagnetic reference field (IGRF)-based geomagnetic configuration.