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1.
The relationship between the simultaneously observed positions of the maximum omnidirectional flux of the quiet-time ring current positive ions (Λφ) and the maximum electron temperature ΛT in the trough is studied in the midnight sector of the topside ionosphere. Λφ maps to the inner edge of the plasma sheet where ring current fluxes change from nearly isotropic to trapped. At altitudes near 2500 km, the electron temperature at trough latitudes were always sharply peaked. Although Λφ varied with the level of geomagnetic activity, (Λφ ? ΛT) did not. These observations support the hypothesis that the quiet-time ring current is the source of elevated electron temperatures found near the plasmapause. Below 1300 km, peaked electron temperature distributions in the trough were not consistent features of the data. It is shown that (Λφ ? ΛT) increased with decreasing altitude. The possible influences of a westward component to the convective electric field and ionospheric refraction of ion cyclotron waves are discussed.  相似文献   

2.
Using the data obtained by means of the Alouette-1 satellite, the distribution of electron density in the region of the F2-layer maximum and topside ionosphere during different phases of two successive magnetic storms on September 13 and 16,1963 have been studied. The middle latitudes at local near noon and midnight hours have been considered mainly. It is shown that the daytime topside electron density at some altitudes did not change during the main phases of the two magnetic storms. The electron density decreases below these levels and increases above. During the recovery phases of both magnetic storms the increase in electron density remains at all altitudes from hmF2 to 1000 km.  相似文献   

3.
Theoretical electron density profiles are calculated for the topside ionosphere to determine the major factors controlling the profile shape. Only the mean temperature, the vertical temperature gradient and the O+H+ ion transition height are important. Vertical proton fluxes alter the ion transition height but have no other effect on the profile shape. Diffusive equilibrium profiles including only these three effects fit observed profiles, at all latitudes, to within experimental accuracy.Values of plasma temperature, temperature gradient and ion transition height htT were determined by fitting theoretical models to 60,000 experimental profiles obtained from Alouette l ionograms, at latitudes of 75°S–85°N near solar minimum. Inside the plasmasphere hT varies from about 500 km on winter nights to 850 km on summer days. Diurnal variations are caused primarily by the production and loss of O+ in the ionosphere. The approximately constant winter night value of hT is close to the level for chemical equilibrium. In summer hT is always above the equilibrium level, giving a continual production of protons which travel along lines of force to aid in maintaining the conjugate winter night ionosphere. Outside the plasmasphere hT is 300–600 km above the equilibrium level at all times. This implies a continual near-limiting upwards flux of protons which persists down to latitudes of about 60° at night and 50° during the day.  相似文献   

4.
Steady-state calculations are performed for the daytime equatorial F2-region and topside ionosphere. Values are calculated of the electron and ion temperatures and the concentrations and field-aligned velocities of the ions O+, H+ and He+. Account is taken of upward E × B drift, a summer-winter horizontal neutral air wind and heating of the electron gas by thermalization of fast photoelectrons.The calculated plasma temperatures are in accord with experiment: at the equator there is an isothermal region from about 400–550 km altitude, with temperatures of about 2400 K around 800 km altitude. The transequatorial O+ breeze flux from summer to winter in the topside ionosphere is not greatly affected by the elevated plasma temperatures. The field-aligned velocities of H+ and He+ depend strongly on the O+ field-aligned velocity and on the presence of large temperature gradients. For the minor ions, ion-ion drag with O+ cannot be neglected for the topside ionosphere.  相似文献   

5.
We have studied the extent to which diffusion-thermal heat flow affects H+ temperatures in the high-latitude topside ionosphere. Such a heat flow occurs whenever there are H+?O+ relative drifts. From our study we have found that at high-latitudes, where H+ flows up and out of the topside ionosphere, diffusion-thermal heat flow acts to reduce H+ temperatures by 500–600 K at altitudes above about 900 km.  相似文献   

6.
Explorer 45 traversed the plasmapause (determined approximately via the saturation of the d.c. electric field experiment) at near-equatorial latitudes on field lines which were crossed by Ariel 4 (~600km altitude) near dusk in May 1972 and on field lines which were crossed by Isis II (~1400km altitude) near midnight in December 1971 and January 1972. Many examples were found in which the field line through the near-equatorial plasmapause was traversed by Explorer 45 within one hour local time and one hour universal time of Ariel and Isis crossings of the same L coordinate. For the coincident passes near dusk, the RF electron density probe on Ariel detected electron density depletions near the plasmapause L coordinates when Ariel was in darkness. When the Ariel passes were in sunlight, however, electron depletions were not discernable near the plasmapause field line. On the selected near-midnight passes of Isis II, electron density depressions were typically detected (via the topside sounder) near the plasmapause L coordinate. The dusk Ariel electron density profiles are observed to reflect O+ density variations. Even at the high altitude of Isis near midnight, O+ is found to be the dominant ion in the trough region whereas H+ is dominant at lower latitudes as is evident from the measured electron density scale heights. In neither local time sector was it possible to single out a distinctive topside ionosphere feature as an indicator of the plasmapause field line as identified near the equator. At both local times the equator-determined plasmapause L coordinate showed a tendency to lay equatorward of the trough minimum.  相似文献   

7.
Two kinetic models for the auroral topside ionosphere are compared. The collisionless plasma distributed along an auroral magnetic field line behaves like a non-Ohmic conducting medium with highly non-linear characteristic curves relating the parallel current density to the potential difference between the cold ionosphere and the hot plasmasheet region. The (zero-electric current) potential difference, required to balance the current carried by the precipitating plasmasheet particles and the current transported by the outflowing ionospheric particles, depends on the ratio nps.e/nth.e and Tps.e/Tth.e of the plasmasheet and ionospheric electron densities and temperatures. When in the E-region the magnetic field lines are interconnected by a high conductivity plasma the resulting field-aligned currents driven by the magnetospheric potential distribution are limited by the integrated Pedersen conductivity of the ionospheric layers. These currents are not related to the parallel electric field intensity as they would be in Ohmic materials. The parallel electric field intensity is necessarily determined by the local quasi-neutrality of the plasma.  相似文献   

8.
During August 1972, Explorer 45 orbiting near the equatorial plane with an apogee of ~5.2 Re traversed magnetic field lines in close proximity to those simultaneously traversed by the topside ionospheric satellite ISIS 2 near dusk in the L range 2.0–5.4. The locations of the Explorer 45 plasmapause crossings (determined by the saturation of the d.c. electric field double probe) during this month were compared to the latitudinal decreases of the H+ density observed on ISIS 2 (by the magnetic ion mass spectrometer) near the same magnetic field lines. The equatorially determined plasmapause field lines typically passed through or poleward of the minimum of the ionospheric light ion trough, with coincident satellite passes occurring for which the L separation between the plasmapause and trough field lines was between 1 and 2. Hence, the abruptly decreasing H+ density on the low latitude side of the ionospheric trough is not a near earth signature of the equatorial plasmapause. Vertical flows of the H+ ions in the light ion trough as detected by the magnetic ion mass spectrometer on ISIS were directed upward with velocities between 1 and 2 km s?1 near dusk on these passes. These velocities decreased to lower values on the low latitude side of the H+ trough but did not show any noticeable change across the field lines corresponding to the magnetospheric plasmapause. The existence of upward accelerated H+ flows to possibly supersonic speeds during the refilling of magnetic flux tubes in the outer plasmasphere could produce an equatorial plasmapause whose field lines map into the ionosphere at latitudes which are poleward of the H+ density decrease.  相似文献   

9.
Photoelectrons of ionospheric origin have been observed for the first time at high altitudes (up to 7RE geocentric distance) using the suprathermal plasma analysers (SPA) on the GEOS satellites. At such high altitudes the photoelectron flux is confined within a few degrees of the magnetic field direction. We show how this flux may be identified and extracted from the background which is a combination of locally produced photoelectrons and ambient plasma. GEOS-2 results are presented to illustrate the “turn-on” of the photoelectron flux at dawn in the ionosphere. Data from GEOS-1 are used to study the behaviour of the photoelectron flux with equatorial geocentric distance from 3 to 7RE. The results compare favourably with theoretical models and with ionospheric observations at mid latitudes.  相似文献   

10.
The MARSIS (Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding) instrument on the Mars Express spacecraft provides both local and remote measurements of electron densities and measurements of magnetic fields in the martian ionosphere. The density measurements show a persistent level of large fluctuations, sometimes as much as a factor of three or more at high altitudes. Large magnetic field fluctuations are also observed in the same region. The power spectrums of both the density and magnetic field fluctuations have slopes on a log-log plot that are consistent with the Kolmogorov spectrum for isotropic fluid turbulence. The fractional density fluctuation, Δne/ne, of the turbulence increases with altitude, and reaches saturation, Δne/ne ∼ 1, at an altitude of about 400 km, near the nominal boundary between the ionosphere and the magnetosheath. The fluctuations are usually so large that a well-defined ionopause-like boundary between the ionosphere and the solar wind is seldom observed. Of mechanisms that could be generating this turbulence, we believe that the most likely are (1) solar wind pressure perturbations, (2) an instability in the magnetosheath plasma, such as the mirror-mode instability, or (3) the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability driven by velocity shear between the rapidly flowing magnetosheath and the ionosphere.  相似文献   

11.
Vertical profiles of electron density obtained in the vicinity of the plasmapause using the Alouette-II topside sounder have been analyzed to assess the presence of H+ flow in the topside ionosphere. The observations in the midnight sector show clearly the presence of the plasmapause; i.e. there is a sharp boundary separating the poleward regions of polar wind H+ flow and the more gentle conditions of the plasmasphere where light ions are present in abundance. In contrast, in the sunlit morning sector upwards H+ flow is deduced to be present to invariant latitudes as low as 48° (L = 2·2) in the regions normally known to be well inside the plasmasphere. The upwards H+ flux is sufficiently large (3 × 108 ions cm?2 sec?1) that the plasmapause cannot be seen in the latitudinal electron density contours of the topside ionosphere. The cause for this flow remains unknown but it may be a result of a diurnal refilling process.  相似文献   

12.
The coupled time-dependent O+ and H+ continuity and momentum equations and O+, H+ and electron heat balance equations are solved simultaneously within the L = 1.4 (Arecibo) magnetic flux tube between an altitude of 120 km and the equatorial plane. The results of the calculations are used in a study of the topside ionosphere above Arecibo at equinox during sunspot maximum. Magnetically quiet conditions are assumed.The results of the calculations show that the L = 1.4 magnetic flux tube becomes saturated from an arbitrary state within 2–3 days. During the day the ion content of the magnetic flux tube consists mainly of O+ whereas O+ and H+ are both important during the night. There is an altitude region in the topside ionosphere during the day where ion-counterstreaming occurs with H+ flowing downward and O+ flowing upward. The conditions causing this ion-counterstreaming are discussed. There is a net chemical gain of H+ at the higher altitudes. This H+ diffuses both upwards and downwards whilst O+ diffuses upwards from its solar e.u.v. production source which is most important at the lower altitudes. During the night the calculated O+ and H+ temperatures are very nearly equal whereas during the day there are occasions when the H+ temperature exceeds the O+ temperature by about 300 K.  相似文献   

13.
The Retarding Potential Analyzer aboard OGO-6 sometimes recorded marked depressions of ion temperature as the satellite crossed the equatorial region. These “Ti troughs” occur at heights between about 700 km and the satellite apogee at 1100 km. At the centre of a trough, close to the dip equator, Ti is frequently 500–1000 K below its value at the northern and southern edges, which are usually 15°–20° in latitude from the centre of the trough. At a given season and local time, the occurrence, symmetry, depth and position of the troughs often vary markedly with longitude. The troughs have no particular association with equatorial troughs of ion concentration Ni.As suggested by Hanson, Nagy and Moffett, the Ti troughs appear to be caused by transequatorial winds that drive F region plasma along geomagnetic field lines. The plasma is adiabatically cooled as it is driven upwards on the “upwind” side of the dip equator, and heated as it descends on the “downwind” side. The available data on the occurrence of troughs at different longitudes, local times and seasons are reasonably consistent with wind directions deduced from Jacchia's model and the OGO-6 thermospheric model of Hedin et al., and with the north-south asymmetries of the tropical 630 nm airglow observed by OGO-4 and OGO-6. Factors determining the latitudinal extent of the troughs are discussed and some questions for further study are listed.  相似文献   

14.
The sunlit portion of planetary ionospheres is sustained by photoionization. This was first confirmed using measurements and modelling at Earth, but recently the Mars Express, Venus Express and Cassini-Huygens missions have revealed the importance of this process at Mars, Venus and Titan, respectively. The primary neutral atmospheric constituents involved (O and CO2 in the case of Venus and Mars, O and N2 in the case of Earth and N2 in the case of Titan) are ionized at each object by EUV solar photons. This process produces photoelectrons with particular spectral characteristics. The electron spectrometers on Venus Express and Mars Express (part of ASPERA-3 and 4, respectively) were designed with excellent energy resolution (ΔE/E=8%) specifically in order to examine the photoelectron spectrum. In addition, the Cassini CAPS electron spectrometer at Saturn also has adequate resolution (ΔE/E=16.7%) to study this population at Titan. At Earth, photoelectrons are well established by in situ measurements, and are even seen in the magnetosphere at up to 7RE. At Mars, photoelectrons are seen in situ in the ionosphere, but also in the tail at distances out to the Mars Express apoapsis (∼3RM). At both Venus and Titan, photoelectrons are seen in situ in the ionosphere and in the tail (at up to 1.45RV and 6.8RT, respectively). Here, we compare photoelectron measurements at Earth, Venus, Mars and Titan, and in particular show examples of their observation at remote locations from their production point in the dayside ionosphere. This process is found to be common between magnetized and unmagnetized objects. We discuss the role of photoelectrons as tracers of the magnetic connection to the dayside ionosphere, and their possible role in enhancing ion escape.  相似文献   

15.
The coupled H+ and O+ time-dependent continuity and momentum equations are solved within a region of the L = 3 magnetic flux tube lying between (and including) the F2-layers of conjugate hemispheres. The method of solution is an extended and modified version of the Murphy et al. (1976) method. The model is used to study the coupling between the F2-layers of conjugate hemispheres during magnetically quiet periods.The results of the calculations strongly indicate that the protonosphere acts as a reservoir, with variable H+ content, which prevents direct coupling between the F2-layers of conjugate hemispheres. However there is generally a significant interhemispheric flow of plasma. This flow is caused by conditions in the summer and winter topside ionospheres and it maintains continuity in the plasma concentration within the protonosphere. There are times when the direction of flow is from the winter hemisphere to the summer hemisphere. It is suggested that maintenance of the winter F2-layer at night is not assisted directly by the F2-layer of the conjugate summer hemisphere.It is shown that during the first few days of protonosphere replenishment after a magnetic storm there is an upflow of H+ in the topside ionosphere at all times in the summer hemisphere. There is also an upflow of H+ during the daytime in both hemispheres. A comparison with the results obtained when the interhemispheric H+ flux is held permanently at zero shows that both F2-layers are little affected by the interhemispheric H+ flux. Nevertheless both F2-layers are affected by the H+ tube content of the protonosphere. When the H+ flux at 1000 km in one hemisphere is much greater than the H+ flux at 1000 km in the conjugate hemisphere, there is a corresponding signature in the interhemispheric H+ flux.The results suggest that there is insufficient time between magnetic storms for complete replenishment of the protonosphere to occur.  相似文献   

16.
Published experimental data on ion composition in the topside ionosphere are examined. For certain features (the light ion trough, the high-latitude trough, the high-latitude hole and the mid-latitude total ion concentration trough) it is pointed out that the number of major ions present may be 3 or more. Transport equations derived by Schunk and co-workers are extended to include the case of three major ions in the topside ionosphere. Specific calculations are made for the O+, H+ and He+ ions and the behaviour of the diffusion coefficients is discussed. From a model of the high-latitude ionization hole, described by Heelis et al., representative concentration and temperature profiles are obtained. These profiles are used to demonstrate further the behaviour of the ion diffusion coefficients.  相似文献   

17.
The ambient photoelectron spectrum above 300 km has been measured for a sample of 500 AE-E orbits during the period 13 December 1975 to 24 February 1976 corresponding to solar minimum conditions. The 24 h average and maximum ΣKp were 19 and 35, respectively. The photoelectron flux above 300 km was found to have an intensity and energy spectrum characteristic of the 250–300 km production region only when there was a low plasma density at the satellite altitude. Data taken at local times up to 3 h after sunrise were of this type and the escaping flux was observed to extend to altitudes above 900 km with very little modification, as predicted by several theoretical calculations. The flux at high altitudes was found to be extremely variable throughout the rest of the day, probably as a result of attenuation and energy loss to thermal plasma along the path of the escaping photoelectrons. This attenuation was most pronounced where the photoelectrons passed through regions of high plasma density associated with the equatorial anomaly. At altitudes of 600 km, the photoelectron fluxes ranged from severely attenuated to essentially unaltered—depending on the specific conditions, Photoelectron fluxes from conjugate regions were often less attenuated than those observed arriving from the high density regions immediately below. Comparison of the observed attenuations, photoelectron line broadening, and energy loss due to coulomb scattering from the thermal plasma with rough calculations based on stopping power and transmission coefficients of thermal plasma for fast electrons yielded order of magnitude agreement—satisfactory in view of the large number of assumptions necessary for the calculations. Overall, the impression of the high altitude photoelectron flux which emerges from this work is that the fluxes are extremely variable as a consequence of interactions with the thermal plasma whose density is in turn affected by electrodynamic and neutral wind processes in the underlying F region.  相似文献   

18.
We have studied the extent to which various transport processes affect the dispersal of a gas artificially injected into the night-time atmosphere at F-region altitudes. In addition to diffusion, we have found that nonlinear acceleration, viscous stress, and thermospheric winds affect the dispersal of the injected gas. The magnitude of the effect depends on the atmospheric density, which is a function of solar activity. For an injected H2 gas, non-linear acceleration and viscous stress rapidly become more important than diffusion above about 300 km for low solar activity (T = 750K), 340 km for moderate solar activity (T = 1000K), and 400 km for high solar activity (T = 1500K). For an injected H2O gas, the corresponding altitudes are 350, 400, and 470 km for low, moderate and high solar activity, respectively. The effect of nonlinear acceleration and viscous stress is to retard the expansion of the injected gas. Thermospheric winds of 150–400 m s?1 are important at altitudes near and below the F-region peak electron density. These winds act to transport the injected gas in the wind direction and this affects the shape and temporal development of the subsequent ionospheric hole. Because the H2O diffusion coefficient is smaller than the H2 diffusion coefficient, winds are more important for H2O than for H2.  相似文献   

19.
The ELectron Spectrometer (ELS) from the Analyzer of Space Plasmas and Energetic Atoms (ASPERA-3) flown on the Mars Express spacecraft has an 8% energy resolution, combined with the capability to oversample the martian electron distribution. This makes possible the resolution and identification of electrons generated as a result of the He 304 Å ionization of CO2 at the martian exobase on the dayside of the planet. Ionospheric photoelectrons were observed during almost every pass into the ionosphere and CO2 photoelectron peaks were identified near the terminator. Atmospherically generated CO2 photoelectrons are also observed at 10,000 km altitude in the martian tail near the inner magnetospheric boundary. Observations over a wide range of spacecraft orbits showed a consistent presence of photoelectrons at locations along the inner magnetospheric boundary and in the ionosphere, from an altitude of 250 to 10,000 km.  相似文献   

20.
The transient response of the topside ionosphere to precipitation   总被引:1,自引:0,他引:1  
A numerical time-dependent model of the topside and F-layer ionosphere is used to describe how the density of O+ ions and the plasma temperatures change as a result of transient electron precipitation with a soft energy spectrum (ca. 100 eV per electron). The response time for electron gas heating is about 2 min; for changes in topside scale height it is from 5 to 15 min, depending on altitude; and for changes in F-layer peak density, it is more than an hour. The low-density topside ion gas is thermally isolated on a short time scale; consequently the ion temperature responds almost adiabatically to volume changes. A transient precipitation event (of, say, 10 min duration) initiates a disturbance that propagates upward at approximately the sonic upeed in the plasma (ca. 2km/s), growing in amplitude with height. Such an event has little effect on the density at the peak of the F layer. An element of ionosphere that drifts horizontally in an antisunward direction through the magnetospheric cleft and into the polar cap recieves some ionization from the cleft, but not enough to be decisive in its survival. The collapse of the topside when heating is removed increases temporarily the density of the F layer.  相似文献   

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