Dynamics of three dimensional ionospheric plasma clouds.

Abstract

The first self-consistent, three-dimensional analysis of plasma cloud evolution in the ionosphere is presented. It is demonstrated that there is a preferred perpendicular scale size associated with 3D plasma clouds given by ${\mathrm{r}}_{\mathrm{c}}$\ensuremath{\sim}c(${\mathrm{T}}_{\mathrm{e}}$+${\mathrm{T}}_{\mathrm{i}}$)/${\mathrm{eB}}_{\mathrm{z}}$${\mathrm{V}}_{\mathrm{n}}$${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Gamma}}}_{\mathrm{c}}$, where ${\mathrm{r}}_{\mathrm{c}}$ is the cloud radius, ${\mathrm{T}}_{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\alpha}}}$ is the temperature of the \ensuremath{\alpha} species, ${\mathrm{B}}_{\mathrm{z}}$ is the ambient magnetic field, and ${\mathrm{V}}_{\mathrm{n}}$ is the neutral wind speed, and ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Gamma}}}_{\mathrm{c}}$1/ \ensuremath{\surd}2 .