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Discrete Auroral Arcs and Nonlinear Dispersive Field Line Resonances
Author(s) -
Rankin R.,
Samson J. C.,
Tikhonchuk V. T.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/1999gl900058
Subject(s) - physics , field line , electron density , electron , magnetosphere , computational physics , plasma , electric field , gyroradius , resonance (particle physics) , ion , context (archaeology) , geophysics , dipole , atomic physics , field (mathematics) , alfvén wave , electron temperature , magnetic field , geology , magnetohydrodynamics , quantum mechanics , mathematics , pure mathematics , paleontology
Dispersive effects in field line resonances (FLRs) are discussed in the context of potential structures, parallel currents, and auroral density cavities observed by the FAST satellite. Our model includes the Earth's dipole magnetic field, and accounts for electron inertia, electron thermal pressure, finite ion gyroradius effects, and field aligned variations of the plasma density and ambient electron and ion temperatures. For realistic backgound parameters, we show that finite plasma temperature effects determine the dynamics of FLRs and that solitary wave structures evolve out of the resonance region, producing deep density cavities above the polar ionospheres. Results are shown to be in reasonable agreement with ground and satellite observations, with the exception of the magnitude of low altitude electric fields.