NSF Award
0003925
The investigators will study plasma structure, dynamics, and coupling resulting from the interaction of an inverted-V structure and a typical polar wind plasma during its transit through the auroral region. An important objective in ionosphere-magnetosphere coupling is to trace the flow of mass, energy, and momentum, on both small and large scales. In the auroral region, this coupling can be affected by the interaction of thermal and auroral plasmas, which can lead to plasma energization, and multi-scale plasma structures. A persistent signature in the auroral regions is an inverted-V structure in the precipitating electron spectral distribution. The interaction of the convecting polar wind with the inverted-V structures is likely to result in dramatic departures of the polar wind plasma transport properties, which are a key factor in defining ionosphere-magnetosphere coupling. The study will be based on a generalized, time-dependent, 16-moment, multi-species, multi-scale, field-aligned transport model capable of simulating mesoscale plasma outflow processes. The model will be used to quantify the role of an inverted-V structure in mesoscale plasma dynamics, plasma energization, density structures, and ionospheric plasma outflow. The model results will help to understand the most important physical processes influencing magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling.
