Auroral nightside downward-current regions: ClusterII observations

Details Auroral nightside downward-current regions: ClusterII observations Auroral nightside downward-current regions: ClusterII observations

Dec 2007

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007agufmsm53d..07l&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2007, abstract #SM53D-07

Physics

2437 Ionospheric Dynamics, 2451 Particle Acceleration, 2704 Auroral Phenomena (2407), 2721 Field-Aligned Currents And Current Systems (2409), 2736 Magnetosphere/Ionosphere Interactions (2431)

Scientific paper

The ClusterII spacecraft traverse the nightside auroral zone at 4-6 Re altitudes in February-March of each year. In 2004, their separation was such as to cross the auroral zone with separation times of a few minutes, comparable to the expected timescales of auroral downward current sheet evolution. We present observations from 12 such events from an effort to look for signatures of the temporal evolution of the auroral downward current system. We compare the electron characteristic energy (ratio of energy flux to number flux) and density of the upgoing electron beams as measured by the PEACE instrument, to electric field signatures from EFW including integrated potential, divergent field structures, and ambient density calculated from the spacecraft potential. The events are seen to be localized on or near ambient density gradients. The characteristic energy of the upgoing electrons is inversely proportional to their number density. Characteristic energies of up to a few keV are seen, and these energies typically decrease with time as subsequent spacecraft cross the same event.

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