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Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons

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Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

Series

2022

Alfvén waves

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Ionospheric Feedback And Ulf Quarter-Waves, Anatoly Streltsov, Evgeny V. Mishin Sep 2022

Ionospheric Feedback And Ulf Quarter-Waves, Anatoly Streltsov, Evgeny V. Mishin

Publications

This paper presents results from the numerical investigation of nonlinear feedback interactions between ULF field-aligned currents (FACs) and the ionospheric plasma in the global magnetospheric resonator with a non-symmetrical distribution of the plasma density in the conjugate hemispheres. The density asymmetry is enhanced by the introduction of the ionospheric valley in the hemisphere where the plasma density is already lower. The main result from this study is that in the non-symmetrical resonator, the ionospheric feedback mechanism, driven by the electric field with the maximum amplitude of 50 mV/m, develops nonlinear, intense, small-scale upward currents with a characteristic quarter-wavelength structure along …


Resonant Alfvén Waves In The Lower Auroral Ionosphere: Evidence For The Nonlinear Evolution Of The Ionospheric Feedback Instability, Hassanali Akbari, Anatoly Streltsov, Robert Pfaff, James Clemmons, Henry Freudenreich, Douglas Rowland Jan 2022

Resonant Alfvén Waves In The Lower Auroral Ionosphere: Evidence For The Nonlinear Evolution Of The Ionospheric Feedback Instability, Hassanali Akbari, Anatoly Streltsov, Robert Pfaff, James Clemmons, Henry Freudenreich, Douglas Rowland

Publications

During the “Auroral Jets” experiment from Poker Flat, Alaska on 2 March 2017, two NASA sounding rockets were simultaneously launched into the active auroral ionosphere. The rockets were equipped with instrumentation to measure DC and AC electric fields, magnetic fields, energetic electrons, plasma density, and neutral winds and achieved apogees of 190 and 330 km. A prominent feature of the electric and magnetic field observations is the presence of localized large-amplitude (±40 mV/m and ±100 nT) small-scale (λ⊥∼ 1 km) Alfvén wave structures at altitudes as low as 150 km in the vicinity of up- and down-ward current regions. We …