Abstract Solar wind‐magnetosphere interaction may result in an elongated magnetotail with stored magnetic field energy. This study presents for the first time a family of asymptotic solutions for stretched two‐dimensional magnetotail equilibrium in generalized nonthermal plasmas, including the Kappa‐like and Maxwellian‐like velocity distributions with distinct temperature profiles. In the kinetic equilibrium model, the thermal pressure as functions of magnetic vector potential depends on the kinetic velocity distribution, which is a prescribed function in the MHD Grad‐Shafranov equation. The overall equilibrium structures may be computed using various along with the equatorial pressure, density or magnetic field profiles. Thin current sheets with stretched tail‐like magnetic field configurations and small equatorial may be constructed for various kinetic distributions with enhanced drift velocity and reduced central temperature. The equilibrium models may be used as the initial profiles for analyzing various fluid and kinetic plasma instabilities and magnetic reconnection. The theoretical models may be compared with the observations to infer the corresponding MHD and kinetic distributions.
Hau et al. (Sun,) studied this question.