Return current region aurora: parallel fields, field-aligned currents, and particle energization

Details Return current region aurora: parallel fields, field-aligned currents, and particle energization Return current region aurora: parallel fields, field-aligned currents, and particle energization

May 2001

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001agusm..sm41b04l&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Spring Meeting 2001, abstract #SM41B-04

Physics

2407 Auroral Ionosphere (2704), 2409 Current Systems (2708), 2411 Electric Fields (2712), 7807 Charged Particle Motion And Acceleration

Scientific paper

We consider ion heating in downward current, downward electric field, pre-midnight auroral regions, using a case study and a statistical study from FAST data. Ion pitch angle distribution functions are used to calculate, through the momentum balance equation, a self-consistent local parallel electric field. The statistical database uses data from 23 premidnight auroral FAST crossings. The statistical study shows that: the ion to electron energy ratio varies from 1 to 10; the BBELF wave power is controlled by the local value of field aligned current times parallel electric field strength; the relationship between the field-aligned current and the parallel electric field strength is controlled by the local plasma density; and the wavepower near the cyclotron frequency is sufficient to provide the observed ion energies for oxygen in all cases, and the observed ion energies for hydrogen for events near the poleward edge. The strong correlation which is observed between the wavepower and the DC Poynting flux validates the use of the ion distributions as a probe of the local parallel electric field. As expected from theoretical arguments, the current-voltage relationship in these regions is seen to be controlled by the local ionospheric density. Allowing for suitable range in values of the density, the model can be applied to both strong return-current regions within the auroral cavity, and weak-field regions at the poleward boundary.

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