Ionospheric conductivity modulation in ULF pulsations

Abstract

Using incoherent scatter radar and magnetometer measurements, we report that during terrestrial magnetic Pc5 pulsations in the afternoon sector, a modulation of particle precipitation and ionospheric conductivities by a factor of 2 occurs in addition to high‐amplitude variations of electric and magnetic fields. The event thus seems to be considerably more complicated than previously studied ones where information about conductivities was mostly not available. Our groundbased data set gives us several clues about magnetospheric processes. The origin of the conductivity variations seems to be periodically modulated diffusion of hot electrons into the loss cone that is in turn caused by a ring current instability. The direction of the phase propagation of the observed disturbances is also consistent with the hypothesis of a ring current source. Prom the ionospheric electron densities we can roughly estimate the equatorial phase space diffusion rate which seems relatively high. In addition, strong electric field and Poynting flux variations suggest that intense coupling to shear Alfvén modes happens in the magnetosphere. The latitudinal variation of power and wave polarization shows features of a field line resonance. Furthermore, power spectral analysis of conductivities, electric and magnetic fields, reveals that there is a turbulent‐like background in all three parameters, which is of magnetospheric origin but modified by the ionosphere. The power law slope of the conductivity spectra is comparable to that of the electric field, while the ground magnetic field shows a steeper decrease with frequency because of the shielding of small‐scale current structures. A clear anticorrelation between conductivities and the eastward electric field is interpreted as an ionospheric polarization effect, which transmits Alfvén waves from the ionosphere upward. Finally, we show that due to the time‐varying conductivities only the handedness (ratio of left‐ and right‐handed components) of the Hall current is very close to that of the magnetic field, while the electric field has a significantly different polarization.