An investigation of the field-aligned currents associated with a large-scale ULF wave in the morning sector

Abstract

Previous work by Scoffield, H.C., Yeoman, T.K., Wright, D.M., Milan, S.E., Wright, A.N., Strangeway, R.J. [2005. An investigation of the field aligned currents associated with a large scale ULF wave using data from CUTLASS and FAST. Ann. Geophys. 23, 487–498) investigated a large-scale ULF wave, occurring in the dusk sector (∼1900 MLT). The wave had a period of ∼800 s (corresponding to 1.2 mHz frequency), an azimuthal wave number of ∼7 and a full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) across the resonance of 350 km. IMAGE ground magnetometer and SuperDARN radar observations of the wave's spatial and temporal characteristics were used to parameterise a simple, two-dimensional field line resonance (FLR) model. The model-calculated field-aligned current (FAC) was compared with FACs derived from the FAST energetic particle spectra and magnetic field measurement. Here the authors use the same method to investigate the FAC structure of a second large-scale ULF wave, with a period of ∼450 s, occurring the dawn sector (∼0500 MLT) with an opposite sense background region 1–region 2 current system. This wave has a much larger longitudinal scale ( m∼4.5) and a smaller latitude scale (FWHM=150 km). Unlike the dusk sector wave, which was dominated by upward FAC, FAST observations of the dawn sector wave show an interval of large-scale downward FAC of ∼1.5 μA m −2. Downgoing magnetospheric electrons with energies of a few keV were observed, which are associated with upward FACs of ∼1 μA m −2. For both wave studies, downward currents appear to be carried partially by upgoing electrons below the FAST energy detection threshold (5 eV), but also consist of a mixture of hotter downgoing magnetospheric electrons and upgoing ionospheric electrons of energies 30 eV–1 keV. Strong intervals of upward current show that small-scale structuring of scale ∼50 km has been imposed on the current carriers. In general, this study confirms the findings of Scoffield, H.C., Yeoman, T.K., Wright, D.M., Milan, S.E., Wright, A.N., Strangeway, R.J. [2005. An investigation of the FACs associated with a large-scale ULF wave using data from CUTLASS and FAST. Ann. Geophys. 23, 487–498).