Investigating the impact of the latitudinal velocity profile on nonlinear gradient drift instability development in the subauroral ionosphere

Abstract

Subauroral polarization streams (SAPS) are regions in the subauroral ionosphere with lower plasma density and large westward flow driven by a poleward electric field. Density irregularities have been observed in the SAPS region; these irregularities can negatively impact radio signals by causing phase and amplitude fluctuations. Previous work identified the gradient drift instability (GDI) as a generation mechanism of such ionospheric irregularities in SAPS and investigated the impact of the velocity profile on the GDI development. The turbulence spectra of the GDI are important to understand as they can provide insight into spatial scales associated with the turbulent evolution that may impact radio propagation. We hypothesize that the background electric field, through the neutral wind, and the nature of the velocity shear have an impact on the power laws from the turbulence spectra. A 2D fluid model is used to investigate the turbulence spectra of GDI in SAPS with a fixed background density profile and different latitudinal velocity profiles. Data from Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN) radar and Global Positioning System (GPS) provide the background ionospheric conditions. The neutral wind direction is chosen to be in the equatorward direction, which is in line with typical observations; however, this can be used to modify the electric field to consider new possibilities in the SAPS region. The angle of the electric field is manifested through the combination of the background velocity profile ( drift) and the neutral wind. The turbulence spectra of cases with no velocity profile and with different neutral wind directions are analyzed. The impact of velocity shear is studied by translating the velocity shear location relative to the density gradient. Numerical spectral analysis results are presented and compared to recent experimental observations. Results of spectral slopes of GDI simulations with no background velocity ( drift) were found to be and for the normalized density and the perturbed electric potential, respectively. Spectral slopes for simulations with different velocity shear locations were found to follow power laws of and for the normalized density and perturbed electric potential (inside SAPS region), respectively.