Plasma Wave and Electron Density Structure Observed in the Cusp with a Dual-Rocket Experiment
Résumé
The Twin Rockets to Investigate Cusp Electrodynamics (TRICE) were launched on December 10, 2007, from Andoya Research Range in Andenes, Norway, into the active cusp. Both payloads traveled north over Svalbard, with one payload reaching an apogee of ~1100 km, and the other reaching ~600 km. The payloads were separated by 100-400 km during the main portion of the flight. Both payloads included waveform receivers with 5 MHz bandwidth. These recorded several distinct types of auroral waves including whistler mode waves below ~1000 kHz and Langmuir-upper hybrid waves at 300-3000 kHz for several hundred km. Both payloads concurrently encountered a distinct period of Langmuir turbulence. Clearly defined wave cutoffs provide measurements of electron density and reveal significant density structure with density enhancements having amplitudes up to 100 percent and scale sizes from meters to tens of kilometers. Analysis of the inferred density profiles using windowed Fourier Transforms or Lomb-Scargle periodograms generates dynamic spectra of the density, which provide estimates of the spectral composition of the density irregularities for time intervals sufficiently short that the stationarity of the spectra can be investigated. The large-scale structures through which the two payloads propagated were measured by both the EISCAT and SuperDARN radars as well as by all-sky cameras operated at Longyearbyen and Ny-Alesund on Svalbard. Using this data when available, comparison of the density irregularity waveforms and spectra from the two flights is studied in relation to spatial and altitude variations of the turbulence. This examination of wave and density structures and the large scale formations with which they are associated will add to the understanding of the large scale electrodynamics of the cusp region.