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Large‐scale structures in the equatorial ionosphere and their connection to the generalized Rayleigh‐Taylor instability
Author(s) -
Dao E.,
Kelley M. C.,
Pfaff R. F.,
Roddy P. A.
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
journal of geophysical research: space physics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2169-9402
pISSN - 2169-9380
DOI - 10.1002/jgra.50283
Subject(s) - ionosphere , rayleigh–taylor instability , instability , electric field , physics , connection (principal bundle) , scale (ratio) , rayleigh scattering , geophysics , computational physics , mathematics , geometry , mechanics , optics , quantum mechanics
For the first time, electric field and density fluctuations have been simultaneously measured on the Communications/Navigation Outage Forecasting System satellite at large scales (>300 km). The ratio of their spectral power rises as k 2 , unlike scales from 20 m to 300 km where the ratio is independent of k . We suggest that gravity waves dominate these large scales and mix with density gradients via self‐generated electric fields to form δn / n 0 .