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Are north‐south aligned auroral structures an ionospheric manifestation of bursty bulk flows?
Author(s) -
Henderson M. G.,
Reeves G. D.,
Murphree J. S.
Publication year - 1998
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 - 10.1029/98gl02692
Subject(s) - ionosphere , substorm , geosynchronous orbit , physics , geophysics , plasma , magnetosphere , phase (matter) , astronomy , satellite , nuclear physics , quantum mechanics
Bursty Bulk Flow (BBF) events are an important means of plasma transport in the Earth's magnetotail during substorms. While several studies have been performed using in‐situ plasma and field data to determine the characteristics of BBFs, remarkably little attention has been paid to the question of whether or not these events also manifest themselves in the auroral ionosphere. In this paper, we present observations from the Viking UV imager, and the Los Alamos National Laboratory geosynchronous energetic particle detectors that strongly suggest that the north‐south aligned structures formed impulsively and repetitively during the expansion phase of substorms may be an ionospheric manifestation of BBFs.