The connection between radiation belt and auroral processes

✍ Scribed by John M. Cornwall

• Publisher: Springer Netherlands
• Year: 1983
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 525 KB
• Volume: 34
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0038-6308
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00175280

✦ Synopsis

The aurora with its associated electric fields and energetic particles affects the structure of the ionosphere, plasmaphere, and ring current. It injects protons and heavier ions (He +, 0 + ) into the magnetosphere which can yield energy to or absorb energy from the ring current and plasmasphere via electromagnetic ion-cyclotron interactions. Its parallel electric fields are determined by perpendicular convection electric fields, which may (on a sufficiently long time scale) be themselves strongly affected by the ring current. We briefly review some of these connections, with emphasis on the relationship between parallel potential drops and the gross convection pattern.