Magnetic observations which are not complicated by currents of trapped plasma are a good test of geomagnetopause and geomagnetotail predictions. Recent attempts to model the Hermean magnetospheric field based on a planet‐centered magnetic multipole field with a quadrupole moment in addition to the planetary dipole field or a dipole field linearly displaced from planet center and no quadrupole moment have produced reasonably good fits to the Mercury magnetic field measurements. In this work we find a better fit for a dipole displacement from the planet center by making use of an improved representation of the magnetic field in the magnetotail, where many of the Mercury measurements were made. The rms deviation of the data was reduced from 10. or 11. γ to 9.3 γ by employing this new tail field representation. Also, by making use of this new tail field representation, we find a best fit for a dipole displacement of −0.0285 RM (earlier, 0.026 RM) toward the dawn in the magnetic equatorial plane and 0.17 RM (earlier, 0.189 RM (earlier, 0.189 RM) northward along the magnetic dipole axis, where RM is the planet radius. Thus with only minor adjustments in the displacement vector of the dipole from the planet center we achieve a measurable improvement in the fit of the data by using the improved magnetotail field representation.
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