Small‐scale field‐aligned plasmaspheric density structures inferred from the Radio Plasma Imager on IMAGE

Abstract

Among the objectives of the Radio Plasma Imager (RPI) on IMAGE is the observation of the Earth's plasmasphere from the satellite's polar orbit, with apogee ≈8 RE geocentric distance and perigee near 1200 km altitude. This objective is here pursued by (1) remote sounding from high‐altitude regions outside the main plasmasphere, (2) sounding within the plasmasphere, and (3) in situ passive measurements of natural wave activity. During sounding of the plasmasphere from both outside and inside the plasmapause, RPI echoes that follow non‐field‐aligned ray paths are usually not the discrete traces on range‐versus‐frequency records (plasmagrams) that are predicted by ray‐tracing simulations in smooth magnetospheric density models. Instead, such RPI echoes exhibit various amounts of spreading, from ≈0.5 RE to ≈2 RE in virtual range (range assuming free‐space speed of light propagation). The range spreading is attributed to scattering from, partial reflection from, and propagation along geomagnetic field‐aligned electron density irregularities. There exists a substantial body of theoretical work on mechanisms that might explain the appearance of such irregularities both within and beyond the plasmasphere. That the spread‐producing irregularities are field‐aligned is suggested by the efficiency with which RPI excites discrete echoes that propagate along the geomagnetic field, sometimes into both hemispheres. The spatial distributions and scale sizes of the spread‐producing irregularities remain to be investigated. The RPI echo data, however, coupled with earlier evidence from topside sounders and whistler mode instruments, suggest that they can have cross‐field scale sizes within a range from ≈200 m to over 10 km and electron densities within ≈10% of background. RPI is found capable of detecting plasmapause locations from distances of ≈3 RE or more. When minimal signal integration is used, the location and range of density values of a steep plasmapause can be determined from distances of order 1 RE, and echoes can at times be returned from points extending inward from the plasmapause to locations where the electron density reaches ≈3000 cm−3, which is usually at L < 3.