Interaction of plasma cloud with external electric field in lower ionosphere
In the auroral lower-E and upper-D region of the ionosphere, plasma clouds, such as sporadic-E layers and meteor plasma trails, occur daily. Large-scale electric fields, created by the magnetospheric dynamo, will polarize these highly conducting clouds, redistributing the electrostatic potential...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Copernicus Publications
2010-03-01
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| Series: | Annales Geophysicae |
| Online Access: | https://www.ann-geophys.net/28/719/2010/angeo-28-719-2010.pdf |
| Summary: | In the auroral lower-E and upper-D region of the ionosphere, plasma clouds,
such as sporadic-E layers and meteor plasma trails, occur daily. Large-scale
electric fields, created by the magnetospheric dynamo, will polarize these
highly conducting clouds, redistributing the electrostatic potential and
generating anisotropic currents both within and around the cloud. Using a
simplified model of the cloud and the background ionosphere, we develop the
first self-consistent three-dimensional analytical theory of these phenomena.
For dense clouds, this theory predicts highly amplified electric fields
around the cloud, along with strong currents collected from the ionosphere
and circulated through the cloud. This has implications for the generation of
plasma instabilities, electron heating, and global MHD modeling of
magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling via modifications of conductances induced
by sporadic-E clouds. |
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| ISSN: | 0992-7689 1432-0576 |