Separating spatial and temporal variations in auroral electric and magnetic fields by Cluster multipoint measurements

Details Separating spatial and temporal variations in auroral electric and magnetic fields by Cluster multipoint measurements Separating spatial and temporal variations in auroral electric and magnetic fields by Cluster multipoint measurements

Dec 2003

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2003agufmsm22c..05k&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2003, abstract #SM22C-05

Physics

2704 Auroral Phenomena (2407), 2708 Current Systems (2409), 2712 Electric Fields (2411), 2736 Magnetosphere/Ionosphere Interactions, 2794 Instruments And Techniques

Scientific paper

Cluster multipoint measurements of the electric and magnetic field on auroral field lines at an altitude of 4 RE are used to show that it is possible to resolve the ambiguity of temporal versus spatial variations in the fields. We show that the largest electric fields (of the order of several hundreds of mV/m when mapped down to the ionosphere) are of a quasi-static nature, associated with upward electron beams, stable on a time scale of at least half a minute, and located in regions of downward current, and we conclude that they are the high-altitude analogues of the intense return current/black auroral electric field structures observed at lower altitudes by Freja and FAST. Outside of these structures there are temporal fluctuations, which are shown to likely be downward traveling Alfvén waves. The periods of these waves are 20 - 40 s, which is not consistent with periods associated with either the Alfvénic ionospheric resonator or field line resonances. The multipoint measurements enable us to estimate a lower limit to the perpendicular wavelength of the Alfvén waves.

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