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Role of E region conductivity in the development of equatorial ionospheric plasma bubbles
Author(s) -
Bhattacharyya Archana
Publication year - 2004
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 - 10.1029/2003gl018960
Subject(s) - plasma , ionosphere , electrical resistivity and conductivity , physics , f region , mode (computer interface) , coupling (piping) , linear growth , geophysics , computational physics , materials science , mathematics , quantum mechanics , mathematical analysis , computer science , metallurgy , operating system
A transmission line analogy, which has been used earlier in a linear theory for the development of equatorial plasma bubbles, is extended to study the effect of E region conductivity on non‐linear evolution of the plasma bubbles. For this, a set of mode coupling equations are used to describe non‐linear development of equatorial plasma bubbles in the presence of field‐aligned currents which couple the equatorial F region with conjugate E regions. For a three mode system, these non‐linear equations yield a condition for unstable fixed states. This condition shows that E region resistivity together with F region polariz‐ability introduces another time scale in the non‐linear evolution of equatorial bubbles, and this is the time scale for discharging the bubbles.