University of Leicester
Browse

Polar cap patch segmentation of the tongue of ionization in the morning convection cell

Download (1.24 MB)
journal contribution
posted on 2014-04-08, 15:11 authored by Q. H. Zhang, B. C. Zhang, J. Moen, M. Lockwood, I. W. McCrea, H. G. Yang, H. Q. Hu, R. Y. Liu, S. R. Zhang, Mark Lester
Two types of poleward moving plasma concentration enhancements (PMPCEs) were observed during a sequence of pulsed reconnection events, both in the morning convection cell: Type L (low density) was associated with a cusp flow channel and seems likely to have been produced by ionization associated with particle precipitation, while Type H (high density) appeared to originate from the segmentation of the tongue of ionization by the processes which produced the Type L events. As a result, the Type L and Type H PMPCEs were interspersed, producing a complex density structure which underlines the importance of cusp flow channels as a mechanism for segmenting and structuring electron density in the cusp and shows the necessity of differentiating between at least two classes of electron density patches.

Funding

STFC grant ST/H002480/1

History

Citation

Geophysical Research Letters, 2013, 40 (12), pp. 2918-2922

Author affiliation

/Organisation/COLLEGE OF SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING/Department of Physics and Astronomy

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Published in

Geophysical Research Letters

Publisher

American Geophysical Union

issn

0094-8276

eissn

1944-8007

Copyright date

2013

Available date

2014-04-08

Publisher version

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/grl.50616/abstract

Language

en