Chorus and chorus-like emissions seen by the ionospheric satellite DEMETER

Abstract : A lot of different emissions have been detected by the low-altitude satellite DEMETER (Detection of ElectroMagnetic Emissions Transmitted from Earthquake Regions), and the aim of this paper is to study extremely low frequency (ELF) electromagnetic waves with elements drifting in frequency. It is shown that only some of them can be considered as usual chorus. These chorus elements are emitted in the equatorial plane, and their propagation analysis indicates that they are going downward at low altitudes in the ionosphere to be detected by the satellite. The study of one remarkable event recorded along the same orbit in both the Northern and the Southern Hemispheres on 8 May 2008 indicates that this propagation mechanism is reinforced at the location of the ionospheric trough, which corresponds to the plasmapause at higher altitudes. It has been observed that usual chorus elements at low frequencies are always in a frequency band which overlaps with a hiss band limited by a frequency cutoff close to the proton gyrofrequency. Other drifting elements can be attributed to emissions triggered by PLHR (power line harmonic radiation). It means that without a high-resolution spectral analysis, chorus-like elements triggered by PLHR can be wrongly considered as natural chorus. These drifting elements can also appear as filamentary structures emerging at the upper frequencies of a hiss band or quasiperiodic emissions. There are events where the elements even have certain similarities to quasiperiodic emissions. The difference between these elements and the chorus emissions will be emphasized.