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Abstract

Boundary layers form at the interface between the shocked solar wind and planetary magnetospheres. The dynamics of these boundary layers play a key role in the transport of mass, momentum, and energy across the magnetopause boundary. Important processes include magnetic reconnection, shear-flow driven instabilities, kinetic-scale waves, and turbulent non-linear structures, which can couple the dynamics from fluid to kinetic scales. Recent satellite missions, such as MMS, provide high-resolution measurements with multipoint observations, that make it possible to resolve kinetic-scales with a growing number of magnetopause crossings available for systematic studies. Planetary missions, such as Juno, provide key observations of boundary layer processes in rotation dominated magnetospheres. These observations provide new insights on how boundary layers develop under different solar wind conditions in different types of magnetospheres. Advances in modeling also provide improved resolution from global to kinetic scales providing a better description of transport and heating processes. This talk highlights recent advances in understanding boundary layer processes.