Dipole tilt controls bow shock location and flaring angle

The dipole tilt angle has beenfound to affect Earth's bow shock.This work presents a quantitative relationship between the dipole tilt angle and the bow shock location and flaring angle.We collected a large data set of bow shock crossings from four different satellites(IMP 8,Geotail,Magion 4,and Cluster),including some recent crossings obtained during 2012-2013.The results from a statistical analysis demonstrate that:(1)the subsolar standoff distance increases but the flaring angle decreases with increasing dipole tilt angle;(2)when the dipole tilt angle changes sign from negative to positive,the dayside bow shock moves toward Earth and the shift can be as much as 2.29 R_E,during which the flaring angle increases;and(3)the shape of bow shock in the northern and southern hemispheres differs.For the northern hemisphere bow shock,with increasing positive/negative dipole tilt angle,the flaring angle increases/decreases.While for the southern hemisphere,the trend is the opposite;with increasing positive/negative dipole tilt angle,the flaring angle decreases/increases.These results are helpful for future bow shock modeling that needs to include the effects of dipole tilt angle.