The Formation of Electron Heat Flux Over the Sunlit Quiet Polar Cap Ionosphere

Abstract

AbstractWe consider a new mechanism for the thermal electron heat fluxes formation over the sunlit polar cap in the presence of the potential jumps that are created by the photoelectron escape along the open magnetic field lines. Photoelectrons traveling into the magnetosphere experience small Coulomb collisional scattering, and the low‐energy part of their spectra becomes trapped between the potential jump and upper ionosphere creating the thermal electron energy fluxes that support the formation of electron temperature at the ionospheric altitudes. This mechanism eliminates the need for the customary practice of assuming arbitrary electron heat fluxes at the upper ionospheric boundary in order to explain the measured electron temperature in the topside ionosphere.