Backward mapping solutions of the Boltzmann equation in cylindrically symmetric, uniformly charged auroral ionosphere

Abstract

By applying a backward mapping technique, we solve the Boltzmann equation to investigate the effects of ion-neutral collisions on the ion velocity distribution and related transport properties in cylindrically symmetric, uniformly charged auroral ionosphere. Such a charge geometry introduces a radial electric field which increases linearly with distance from the axis of symmetry. In order to obtain complete analytical solutions for gaining physical insights into more complicated problems, we have substituted a relaxation collision model for the Boltzmann collision integral in the Boltzmann equation. Our calculations show that collisions drive the velocity distribution to a “horseshoe” shape after a few collision times. This feature extends to all radial positions as long as the electric field keeps increasing linearly versus radius. If the electric field is introduced suddenly, there is a transition from the collision-free pulsating Maxwellian distributions obtained in previous work (Ma and St.-Maurice, J. Geophys. Res., 113:A05312, 2008) to the “horseshoe” shapes on a time scale of within the few collision times. We also show how the transport properties evolve in a similar fashion, from oscillating to a non-oscillating features over the same time interval.