Structure and dynamics of auroral electron precipitation: sounding rocket and groundbased observations of tall rays at the nightside poleward boundary

Details Structure and dynamics of auroral electron precipitation: sounding rocket and groundbased observations of tall rays at the nightside poleward boundary Structure and dynamics of auroral electron precipitation: sounding rocket and groundbased observations of tall rays at the nightside poleward boundary

Dec 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011agufmsm51d..02l&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2011, abstract #SM51D-02

Physics

Plasma Physics

[2704] Magnetospheric Physics / Auroral Phenomena, [7867] Space Plasma Physics / Wave/Particle Interactions

Scientific paper

The Cascades2 auroral sounding rocket provides a case study for comparing multipoint in situ ionospheric observations of a nightside auroral poleward boundary intensification (PBI) event with groundbased optical studies of the same event. Cascades2 was launched northward from Poker Flat Alaska on 20 Mar 2009 at 11:04 UT. The 12 minute 43 second flight reached an apogee of 564 km over the northern coast of Alaska. The experiment array included a 5-payload suite of in situ instrumentation, ground cameras with various fields of view at three different points under the trajectory, multiple ground magnetometers, the PFISR radar at the launch site, and the THEMIS spacecraft in the magnetotail. We present parameterization of the PBI Alfvenic auroral signature as seen by the ground optics, the in situ electron data, and the in situ electric field data. Tall rayed structures in the visible PBI curtain have an along-arc spacing of 16 km and an along-arc velocity of 8 km/s in both directions along the arc. The structures are seen in the in situ data as field-aligned bursts of accelerated thermal ionospheric electrons with energies up to a few keV. The electron bursts have modulated peak electron energies (and therefore modulated energy fluxes) corresponding to the spatial structure of the visible rays. The electron precipitation is additionally modulated at a higher frequency, and velocity dispersion analysis of these 8Hz signatures shows the Alfvenic wave-particle acceleration occurring only a few hundred km above the observation point. These observations are used to construct a model of the curtain of Alfvenic activity above the PBI event, both in the dispersive ionosphere and in the presumed magnetotail driver region. We are investigating the plausibility that magnetospheric drivers in the tail reconnection region control the parameterization of this along-arc PBI Alvenic auroral structure and dynamics.

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