Transauroral Ionosphere, Magnetospheric Implications

Jean-Jacques Berthelier (1) , M. Sylvain (1)

1 GRI - Groupe de Recherches Ionosphériques

Recent low energy particle measurements (Frank, 1971; Frank and Ackerson, 1972) and photometric observations (Eather and Mende, 1971) have shown that in a ring extending (for Kp≲3) from ∼78° to 85° IN Lat in the noon sector and ∼72° to 80° in the midnight sector most of the corpuscular energy input is due to soft particles: by transuroral regions we shall refer to this ring-shaped zone. Its existence was disclosed a few years ago on the basis of ionospheric observations (e.g., Nelms and Chapman, 1970) and it is. clear that the behavior of the transauroral ionosphere is essentially dominated by magnetospheric processes and magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling.

Keywords: Interplanetary Magnetic Field; Plasma Sheet; Soft Zone; Solar Wind Density; Polar Ionosphere

Domains: Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics [physics.ao-ph]

Jean-Jacques Berthelier, M. Sylvain. Transauroral Ionosphere, Magnetospheric Implications. McCormac B.M. (eds). Physics and Chemistry of Upper Atmosphere. Astrophysics and Space Science Library, 35, Springer, pp.73-82, 1973, 978-94-010-2544-7. ⟨10.1007/978-94-010-2542-3_9⟩. ⟨insu-02931102⟩