Articles | Volume 32, issue 8
https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-32-1011-2014
© Author(s) 2014. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-32-1011-2014
© Author(s) 2014. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Pre-onset auroral signatures and subsequent development of substorm auroras: a development of ionospheric loop currents at the onset latitudes
Office Geophysik, Ogoori, Japan
K. Hayashi
University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
M. Thomsen
Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, USA
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Transverse electric fields transmitted from the magnetosphere and those generated by the neutral winds yield a local breakdown of the charge neutrality at the boundaries between the thermosphere and mesosphere. The breakdown may create parallel electric fields in the thermosphere to produce spiral auroras and outflows. This explanation supposes an auroral generator located not in a distant space, but rather in our much nearer upper atmosphere.
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Auroral spirals known as northern lights are a spectacular light show in the polar night sky. We show that auroral spirals are produced in the polar ionosphere by the internal processes that ensure quasi-neutral equilibrium of the polar ionosphere which is often violated during field line dipolarization. The internal driver produces spiral auroras in a manner different from the field line mapping scenario.
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Short summary
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The ionosphere is a partly ionized medium above the atmosphere. Because of its anisotropic properties, the imposed electric fields from the magnetosphere produce space charge. Polarization electric fields induced in the ionosphere by this process generate ion drifts (Pedersen currents) and plasma evaporation along the field lines, thus achieving a quasi-neutral equilibrium of the ionosphere. The evaporation grows as a large-scale parallel potential structure in the magnetosphere.
Osuke Saka
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Short summary
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The first 10 min interval of Pi2 onset is the most active period of substorms composed of field line deformations associated with an increase in curvature radius of flux tubes and their longitudinal expansion. The flux tube deformations were triggered by the ballooning instability of slow magnetoacoustic waves upon arrival of the dipolarization front from the tail. They preceded the classical dipolarization caused by the reduction of cross-tail currents and resulting pileup of the field lines.
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Flow channel extending in north–south directions is produced in the initial pulse of Pi2 pulsations associated with the field line dipolarization. Drifts in the ionosphere of the order of kilometers per second accumulated plasmas at the low-latitude end of the flow channel. The plasma compression in the ionosphere produced field-aligned currents, parallel electric fields, and auroral expansion. We called the compressive ionosphere a "dynamic ionosphere".
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