Auroral boundary variations and the interplanetary magnetic field

This paper describes a DMSP data set of 150 auroral images during magnetically quiet times which have been analyzed in corrected geomagnetic local time and latitudinal coordinates and fit to offset circles. The fit parameters R (circle radius) and (X, Y) (center location) have been compared to the hourly interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) prior to the time of the satellite scan of the aurora. The results for variation of R with B_z, agree with previous works and generally show about a 1° increase of R with increase of southward B_z by 1 nT. The location of the circle center also has a clear statistical shift in the Southern Hemisphere with IMF B_y such that the southern polar cap moves towards dusk (dawn) with B_y > (B_y < 0).