Magnetospheric energetic ions from the Earth's ionosphere

Abstract

In the decade and a half since the initial discovery that the Earth's own ionosphere could at times contribute measurably to the hot plasma in the magnetosphere we have made significant progress in both our knowledge and understanding of this connection. We now know that ions of ionospheric origin are found in all major regions of the magnetosphere and at its boundaries. The source region in the ionosphere and the acceleration and transport processes involved in coupling the cold ionospheric plasma to the hot magnetospheric plasma are complex and variable. We now have a good understanding of the large scale morphology of the ionospheric outflow and its distribution throughout the magnetosphere and progress is being made in the understanding of the fundamental physical processes involved. In this paper we concentrate on the large scale morphology and our understanding of the sources for ionospheric ions found in various regions of the magnetosphere and their transport.