Physics
Scientific paper
May 2001
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001agusm..sa42a09r&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Spring Meeting 2001, abstract #SA42A-09
Physics
2411 Electric Fields (2712), 2427 Ionosphere/Atmosphere Interactions (0335), 2431 Ionosphere/Magnetosphere Interactions (2736), 2736 Magnetosphere/Ionosphere Interactions
Scientific paper
The influence of the ionospheric wind dynamo on the electrodynamic interaction between the ionosphere and the inner magnetosphere is evaluated with a model that calculates self-consistently the coupled dynamics and electrodynamics of the thermosphere, the ionosphere and the inner magnetosphere. Two types of interaction between the solar-wind/magnetosphere (SWM) dynamo and the ionospheric dynamo are considered: either the SWM dynamo is a voltage generator imposing a fixed electric potential in the polar cap, or else it is a hybrid current/voltage generator such that the electric potential in the polar cap results from the combined action of the SWM and ionospheric dynamos. For both types of interaction the dynamo effect of winds that are accelerated by the high-latitude ion convection reduces the potential variation around the equatorward edge of the auroral zone and the plasma pressure in the nightside magnetosphere close to the Earth, corresponding to an enhancement of the shielding effect produced by Region-2 field-aligned currents. The magnitudes of the wind-induced effects are on the order of 10% for the shielding potential and 20% for the plasma pressure reduction. For the SWM hybrid current/voltage generator the winds modify the polar-cap potential, increasing the magnitude of the potential variation around the polar-cap boundary. Compared with the SWM voltage generator, the winds also produce a larger potential drop across the auroral zone in the dawn and dusk sectors, amounting to 26% of the potential variation around the polar-cap boundary. The efficiency of wind-dynamo effects on shielding for the SWM voltage-generator case is reduced by the fact that the meridional and zonal winds tend to act in opposing manners in generating electric fields, when account is taken of the necessity for the field to be curl-free and for the potential at the polar-cap boundary to be unchanged by the wind.
Peymirat Christophe
Richmond Arthur D.
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