Physics
Scientific paper
Dec 2008
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008agufmsa13a..04p&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2008, abstract #SA13A-04
Physics
2411 Electric Fields (2712), 2415 Equatorial Ionosphere, 2437 Ionospheric Dynamics, 2439 Ionospheric Irregularities, 2471 Plasma Waves And Instabilities (2772)
Scientific paper
Initial results are presented from the Vector Electric Field Investigation (VEFI) on the Air Force Communication/Navigation Outage Forecasting System (C/NOFS) satellite, a mission designed to understand, model, and forecast the presence of equatorial ionospheric irregularities. The VEFI instrument includes a vector DC electric field detector, a fixed-bias Langmuir probe operating in the ion saturation regime, a flux gate magnetometer, an optical lightning detector, and associated electronics including a burst memory. The DC electric field detector has revealed zonal and meridional electric fields that undergo a diurnal variation, typically displaying eastward and outward-directed fields during the day and westward and downward-directed fields at night. In general, the measured DC electric field amplitudes are in the 0.5-2 mV/m range, corresponding to E x B drifts of the order of 30-150 m/s. What is surprising is the high degree of large-scale (10's of km to > 500 km) structure in the DC electric field, particularly at night, regardless of whether well-defined spread-F plasma density depletions are present. The spread-F density depletions and corresponding electric fields that have been detected thus far have displayed a preponderance to appear between midnight and dawn. Associated with the narrow plasma depletions that are detected are broad spectra of electric field and plasma density irregularities for which a full vector set of measurements is available for detailed study. On some occasions, localized regions of low frequency (< 8 Hz) magnetic field irregularities have been detected, suggestive of filamentary currents. Finally, the data set includes a wide range of ELF/VLF/HF waves corresponding to a variety of plasma waves, in particular banded ELF hiss, whistlers, and lower hybrid wave turbulence triggered by lightning-induced sferics. The VEFI data set represents a treasure trove of measurements that are germane to numerous fundamental aspects of the electrodynamics and plasma irregularities inherent to the Earth's low latitude ionosphere.
Acuña M.
Berthelier Jean-Jacques
Bromund Kenneth
Burke W.
Farrell William
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