Electrodynamics of the magnetosphere–ionosphere coupling in the nightside subauroral zone

Abstract

Results from a numerical study of the oscillations of the electric field measured by the Millstone Hill incoherent scatter radar in the E-layer of the nightside subauroral ionosphere during the geomagnetic storm of May 25, 2000 are presented. The frequencies of these oscillations correspond to the discrete frequencies of geomagnetic pulsations usually attributed to the field line resonances or global cavity modes at a high-latitude auroral zone, but they are well below the fundamental eigenfrequency of the subauroral magnetosphere. It is shown that these oscillations can be interpreted as an ionospheric footprint of the surface Alfvén waves generated at the equatorial magnetosphere on a steep transverse gradient in the background plasma density associated with the inner edge of the plasmapause developed during strong geomagnetic storms/substorms. This density gradient together with the ionospheric Pedersen conductivity defines the location and amplitude of the electric field in the E-layer: the amplitude of the field is proportional to the amplitude of the density inhomogeneity and inversely proportional to its scale-size and the ionospheric conductivity. Interaction of the large amplitude perpendicular electric field with the low-conducting ionosphere can cause the ionospheric feedback instability, which leads to the formation of small-scale, intense structures in the electric field and the parallel current density in the subauroral magnetosphere.