Effects of the Hall Conductivity in Ionospheric Heating Experiments

Abstract

AbstractWe investigate the role of Hall conductivity in ionospheric heating experiments. Ionospheric heating by powerful X‐mode waves changes the Hall and Pedersen conductances in the E and D regions, which lead to the generation of ultra‐low frequency (ULF)/extremely‐low frequency/very low frequency waves, when the electric field exists in the ionosphere. The importance of the Hall currents in the magnetosphere‐ionosphere interactions, carried by ULF waves and field‐aligned currents, has been consistently overlooked in studies devoted to the active experiments. Simulations of the three‐dimensional two‐fluid magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) model, presented in this paper, demonstrate that the Hall conductivity changes (1) the growth rate and the amplitude of ULF waves generated by the heating and (2) the orientation and the direction of propagation of the generated waves. These findings provide insight in the experiments where the waves were generated with a geometric modulation technique and suggest a new and more efficient approach for conducting such experiments in the future.