Three-dimensional magnetospheric equilibrium with isotropic pressure

In the absence of the toroidal flux, two coupled quasi two-dimensional elliptic equilibrium equations have been derived to describe self-consistent three-dimensional static magnetospheric equilibria with isotropic pressure in an optimal ({Psi},{alpha},{chi}) flux coordinate system, where {Psi} is the magnetic flux function, {chi} is a generalized poloidal angle, {alpha} is the toroidal angle, {alpha} = {phi} {minus} {delta}({Psi},{phi},{chi}) is the toroidal angle, {delta}({Psi},{phi},{chi}) is periodic in {phi}, and the magnetic field is represented as {rvec B} = {del}{Psi} {times} {del}{alpha}. A three-dimensional magnetospheric equilibrium code, the MAG-3D code, has been developed by employing an iterative metric method. The main difference between the three-dimensional and the two-dimensional axisymmetric solutions is that the field-aligned current and the toroidal magnetic field are finite for the three-dimensional case, but vanish for the two-dimensional axisymmetric case. With the same boundary flux surface shape, the two-dimensional axisymmetric results are similar to the three-dimensional magnetosphere at each local time cross section