  Ion-scale magnetospheres have been observed around comets, weakly-magnetized
asteroids, and localized regions on the Moon, and provide a unique environment
to study kinetic-scale plasma physics, in particular in the collisionless
regime. In this work, we present the results of particle-in-cell simulations
that replicate recent experiments on the Large Plasma Device at the University
of California, Los Angeles. Using high-repetition rate lasers, ion-scale
magnetospheres were created to drive a plasma flow into a dipolar magnetic
field embedded in a uniform background magnetic field. The simulations are
employed to evolve idealized 2D configurations of the experiments, study
highly-resolved, volumetric datasets and determine the magnetospheric
structure, magnetopause location and kinetic-scale structures of the plasma
current distribution. We show the formation of a magnetic cavity and a magnetic
compression in the magnetospheric region, and two main current structures in
the dayside of the magnetic obstacle: the diamagnetic current, supported by the
driver plasma flow, and the current associated to the magnetopause, supported
by both the background and driver plasmas with some time-dependence. From
multiple parameter scans, we show a reflection of the magnetic compression,
bounded by the length of the driver plasma, and a higher separation of the main
current structures for lower dipolar magnetic moments.
