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Ionospheric Response To An Auroral Substorm, Robert W. Schunk, L. Zhu, Jan Josef Sojka, M. D. Bowline

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The response of the ionosphere to a representative auroral substorm was simulated. The response was found to be significant at all altitudes in a large spatial region near midnight magnetic local time. In this midnight region, there were T_e and T_i hot spots, substantial O⁺ → NO⁺ composition changes, non‐Maxwellian velocity distributions, transient ion upwellings, a large‐scale lowering of the F‐layer, ionization peaks that occur in the E‐region, and sharp horizontal gradients. Also, during the expansion phase, the E‐region densities increase due to auroral precipitation, while the plasma densities above 300 km decrease due to the …