Suppression of Ionospheric Irregularity Due to Auroral Particle Impact

The VISIONS‐2 35.039 sounding rocket was launched from Ny‐Ålesund, Svalbard, on 7 December 2018 at 11:06 UT, and traveled overhead of the cusp aurora. The payload reached an apogee of 806.6 km and provided measurements of the electric field (E) and electron density (Ne) with a high sampling rate of...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of geophysical research. Space physics 2022-01, Vol.127 (1), p.n/a
Main Authors: Takahashi, Toru, Spicher, Andres, Di Mare, Francesca, Rowland, Douglas E., Pfaff, Robert F., Collier, Michael R., Clausen, Lasse Boy Novock, Moen, Jøran Idar
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Altitude
Auroras
Circuits
cusp aurora
Electric fields
Electron density
Emission
Geomagnetic field
instability
Ionization
ionosphere
Irregularities
irregularity
Magnetic fields
Measuring instruments
M‐I coupling
Particle impact
Sampling
sounding rocket
Sounding rockets
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Summary:The VISIONS‐2 35.039 sounding rocket was launched from Ny‐Ålesund, Svalbard, on 7 December 2018 at 11:06 UT, and traveled overhead of the cusp aurora. The payload reached an apogee of 806.6 km and provided measurements of the electric field (E) and electron density (Ne) with a high sampling rate of 6,250 Hz. The high‐sampling‐data make it possible to estimate the horizontal structure of E and Ne on scales ranging from meters to kilometers scale. The horizontal variation in the electron density and electric field (ΔNe/Ne and ΔE) and integrated power of Ne and E (ΣPNe and ΣPE) for 1–10, 10–100, and 100–1,000 Hz range were derived. The derived values were compared with the 557.7 and 630.0 nm emission intensities obtained from an all‐sky camera installed in Ny‐Ålesund projected at the footprint of the rocket, which was calculated by tracing the Earth's magnetic field line from the rocket altitude to the emission layer. ΔNe/Ne, ΔE, ΣPNe, and ΣPE increased with the 630.0 nm emission intensity. Of particular interest is the lower level irregularity was observed when the 557.7 nm emission intensity exceeded 4.5 kR compared with other time interval. This may suggest that particle impact ionization created sufficient Pedersen conductance in the E‐region to short the F‐region current. This short‐circuit seemed to cause the suppression of the irregularities in the F‐region and lower level irregularities were also observed in the rocket altitude. Key Points The ionospheric irregularities and cusp auroral emission were observed by rocket in‐situ and ground based measurement simultaneously The increased level of plasma irregularities observed in‐situ is associated with the ground‐based 630 nm emission The auroral particle impacts in the E‐region are a possible driver of the suppression of F‐region irregularity
ISSN:2169-9380
2169-9402
2169-9402
DOI:10.1029/2020JA028725