Abstract
A study of the reflection of Alfvén waves at a horizontally inhomogeneous ionosphere has been carried out. In this study, the Alfvén speed above the ionosphere is assumed to be uniform and the ionosphere is treated as a height‐integrated conducting slab. Analytical and numerical results indicate that the horizontal nonuniformity of the ionospheric conductivity can lead to a rotation of the reflected wave fields and cause field‐aligned currents that originate in the ionosphere. A strong conductivity nonuniformity in the direction perpendicular to the incident wave field, large Hall to Pedersen conductivity ratios, and low conductivity values lead to a large rotation of the reflected wave field in the range from a few to 40°. The implications of the theoretical results for some ionospheric phenomena are presented, including comments on the Harang discontinuity and Sun‐aligned arcs.
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