Radial plasma drifts deduced from VLF whistler mode signals: A modelling study

Abstract

VLF whistler mode signals have previously been used to infer radial plasma drifts in the equatorial plane of the plasmasphere and the field-aligned ionosphere-protonosphere coupling fluxes. Physical models of the plasmasphere consisting of O + and H + ions along dipole magnetic field lines, and including radial Ez × B drifts, are applied to a mid-latitude flux tube appropriate to whistler mode signals received at Wellington, New Zealand, from the fixed frequency VLF transmitter NLK (18.6 kHz) in Seattle, U.S.A. These models are first shown to provide a good representation of the recorded Doppler shift and group delay data. They are then used to simulate the process of deducing the drifts and fluxes from the recorded data. Provided the initial whistler mode duct latitude and the ionospheric contributions are known, the drifts at the equatorial plane can be estimated to about ± 20 ms −1 (∼10–15%), and the two hemisphere ionosphere-protonosphere coupling fluxes to about ± 10 12 m −2 s −1 (∼40%).