Earth’s magnetosheath: A comparison of plasma flow direction between models and observations

Observations of the plasma flow direction in the Earth’s magnetosheath are compared with the help of three analytical magnetic-field models, namely Kobel and Flückiger (1994), Romashets and Vandas (2019), and Vandas and Romashets (2019), which all assume current-free fields in the magnetosheath. 47 magnetosheath passages by spacecraft are analyzed in detail and performance of the models are evaluated. It is concluded that the performances are comparable and that they are satisfactory on average. Therefore, a usage of the model by Kobel and Flückiger (1994) is recommended, because it is the simplest one and yields results much faster.