Conjugate occurrence of the electric field fluctuations in the nighttime midlatitude ionosphere

Abstract

The DE 2 satellite observed electric field fluctuations on the topside of the nighttime midlatitude ionosphere. They extended several hundred kilometers in the latitudinal direction with wavelengths of several tens of kilometers, and their amplitudes were a few millivolts per meter. Such fluctuations were often observed at magnetically conjugate points in the northern and southern hemispheres. These electric field fluctuations are perpendicular to the geomagnetic field. They are not accompanied by any significant plasma depletion or electron temperature variations. Magnetic field fluctuations are sometimes observed simultaneously with electric field fluctuations. We interpret that these fluctuations are caused by field‐aligned currents which flow from the ionosphere in one hemisphere to the conjugate point in the other hemisphere. The power spectrum of these midlatitude electric field fluctuations follows a power law of the form Power α ƒ −n, with the spectral index n of 3.5 to 4.5, which is steeper than that of the electric field fluctuations in the high‐latitude ionosphere or in the equatorial ionosphere. This phenomenon may be related to other ionospheric phenomena, for example, the F region field‐aligned irregularities or spread‐F, observed by ground‐based methods such as the MU radar, but the relationship is not clear.