On the correlation between electron density and temperature in the topside ionosphere through Swarm satellites data

Abstract

Electron density (Ne) and electron temperature (Te) observations collected by Langmuir Probes (LPs) on board the European Space Agency’s Swarm satellites are used to characterise the Ne−Te correlation in the topside ionosphere. The large dataset of Swarm LPs in-situ observations at 2-Hz rate, covering the years 2014−2021, allowed us to investigate the correlation properties of the topside ionospheric plasma for different diurnal and seasonal conditions, with a coverage and a detail never reached before. Spearman correlation coefficients (RSpearman) are calculated on joint probability distributions between Ne and Te for specific conditions. Results are given as maps of RSpearman as a function of the Quasi-Dipole (QD) magnetic latitude and magnetic local time (MLT) coordinates, for different seasons. This study highlights, for the first time, the Ne−Te correlation at high latitudes, and provides a global description of the corresponding diurnal trend for different seasons. A negative correlation is found at the equatorial morning overshoot, during daytime at mid latitudes, and during night-time at subauroral latitudes (ionospheric trough). Conversely, a positive correlation dominates the night-time sector at mid and low latitudes, and to a minor extent the low latitudes from 09:00 MLT onwards. A seasonal dependence of the correlation is visible only at very high latitudes where the general pattern of anti-correlation is broken around ±75° QD latitude in the summer season.