Characteristics Of Plasma Bubbles Research Articles

Magnetic Storm Effects on the Occurrence and Characteristics of Plasma Bubbles

AbstractThe Communications/Navigation Outages Forecast System satellite mission was designed to investigate the ionospheric conditions that lead to the formation of irregularities. Here, we have studied the effect of magnetic storms on the formation and evolution of plasma bubbles during the satellite's lifetime (2008–2015). During this period encompassing solar minimum and maximum conditions, many magnetic storms of varying intensity developed, producing a unique and rich data set of 248 storms (14 intense, 69 moderate, and 165 weak) that occurred during the same timeframe to examine the role of external magnetospheric drivers in the production and dynamics of equatorial plasma bubbles. We have used the Planar Langmuir Probe and Ion Velocity Meter instruments to elucidate the role of magnetic storm intensity on the bubble's depth, internal speed, width, occurrence, and lifetime. The pre‐reversal enhancement (PRE) tends to increase during the main phase and when BZ is southward. New bubbles occur during large excursions of the PRE value. The bubble lifetime extends and remains active during the main and part of the recovery phase. The plasma velocity within the bubbles increases and typically becomes over 100 m/s during significant PRE and BZ negative times. The depth of bubbles reaches values close to 100% during intense storms. In general, the intensity of the storms seems to control and augment the plasma bubbles' depth, width, and internal velocity.

Modeling of Multi‐Ion Plasma Bubbles in the Equatorial Ionosphere

AbstractEquatorial plasma bubbles (spread F/ionospheric irregularities) are plasma density irregularities or depletion in the ionosphere. It can be observed by radio waves, optical and in situ instruments during postsunset in equatorial and low‐latitude regions. Severe scintillations in radio waves can be caused by the presence of plasma bubbles. Therefore, studies of plasma bubbles become one of the most important and hot topics. Many studies have been devoted to the physical mechanism and characteristics of plasma bubbles in the ionosphere. However, some critical issues (e.g., day‐to‐day variability, complex structures, and ions composition) are still not well known. In this study, a new two‐dimensional model of multi‐ion (H+, He+, N+, O+, N2+, NO+, and O2+) plasma bubbles was developed. The photoionization, chemical reaction, and recombination processes of multiple ions have been added to the new model. The present model was used to simulate the nonlinear evolutions of multiple plasma bubbles in the equatorial region. Results show that the merging, disconnection and connection processes of plasma bubbles can be reproduced in this simulation. In addition, simulations first present morphological structures of molecular ions (NO+, O2+) of multiple plasma bubbles, which are significantly different from plasma bubbles. Molecular ion NO+ is manifested as plasma blobs. However, molecular ion O2+ is manifested as bubbles at low altitudes but blobs at high altitudes. The complex structures of multiple plasma bubbles and morphological structures of molecular ions in the present simulation are mostly consistent with observations.

A Statistical Analysis of Plasma Bubbles Observed by Swarm Constellation during Different Types of Geomagnetic Storms

Based on the observations of Ionospheric Bubble Index (IBI) data from the Swarm mission, the characteristics of plasma bubbles are investigated during different types of geomagnetic storms recorded from 2014 to 2020. The geometrical constellation of the Swarm mission enabled us to investigate the altitudinal profile of the IBIs during different activity levels in a statistical mean. Results show that the majority of IBIs associated with moderate storms are observed at low altitudes and the probability of observing IBIs at high altitudes (Swarm-B) increases with the increase in storm level. This is confirmed by observing the F2 layer peak height (hmF2) during super storm events at larger altitudes using COSMIC data. The maximum number of IBIs is recorded within the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA) region with a long duration time and tends to increase only during dusk time. Both the large duration time and number of IBIs over the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA) suggest that the gradient in the electron density and the depression in the magnetic field are the main factors controlling IBI events. Also, the IBIs at high altitudes are larger at sunset and at low altitudes pre-midnight. In addition, the occurrence of IBIs is always larger in the northern hemisphere than in the southern hemisphere irrespective of the type of storm, as well as during the summer months. Moreover, there is no correlation between the duration time of IBIs and both the altitudinal observation of the IBIs and the storm type. Seasonal occurrence of IBIs is larger during equinoxes and vice versa during solstices irrespective of both the type of storm and the altitude of the satellite. The large number of IBIs during equinoxes agrees with the previous studies, which expect that the large electron density is a developer of steeper ∇n. Large occurrences of super storm IBIs observed within the pre-midnight during summer and at sunset during equinoxes are a novel observation that needs further investigation. Also, the majority of IBIs are observed a few hours after geomagnetic substorms, which reflects the role of the Disturbance Dynamo Electric Field (DDEF) as a main driver of IBIs.

Generation and characteristics of equatorial plasma bubbles detected by the C/NOFS satellite near the sunset terminator

We present the observations of equatorial plasma bubbles in the evening sector by the Communication/Navigation Outage Forecasting System (C/NOFS) satellite during 2011. We illustrate with a few examples the overall properties of the equatorial ionosphere as the solar activity approached maximum. C/NOFS was often below the F peak and this allowed us to examine the early phases of irregularity formation. We show examples when C/NOFS detected a continuous generation of plasma bubbles near the sunset terminator over eight successive orbits (∼12 h). A clear prereversal enhancement of upward plasma drift occurred between 18:00 and 19:00 LT when plasma bubbles were detected by C/NOFS, and the peak value of the upward ion drift at or near the magnetic equator was 40–70 m s−1. In some cases, C/NOFS was well below the Fpeak and detected wide regions with very low plasma density over ∼3000 km in longitude in the evening sector, and plasma bubbles were generated within the low‐density region. C/NOFS also detected simultaneous existence of plasma bubbles between 19:00 and 03:00 LT, corresponding to a longitudinal coverage of ∼12,000 km. Significant differences in the characteristics of plasma bubbles between periods of low and high solar activity are identified. Large plasma bubbles occur in the midnight‐dawn sector at low solar activity but in the evening sector at high solar activity. The lifetime of plasma bubbles is long (7 h or longer) at low solar activity but is short (∼3 h) at high solar activity. Broad plasma depletions occur near dawn at low solar activity, but wide low‐density regions with multiple plasma bubbles occur in the evening sector at high solar activity.

Magnetic-field-aligned characteristics of plasma bubbles in the nighttime equatorial ionosphere

Measurements of both incoherent-scatter (IS) and backscatter from field-aligned irregularities (FAI) were made in 1978 with ALTAIR, a fully-steerable high-power radar, to investigate the magnetic-field-aligned characteristics of equatorial plasma bubbles. By operating the radar in a latitude-scan IS mode, we were able to map the location and percentage depletion of plasma bubbles as a function of altitude and latitude. By showing that backscatter from FAI is spatially collocated with the upper wall of plasma bubbles, we were able to use the spatial displacement of a field aligned backscatter region to estimate the upward bubble velocity. Besides showing that plasma bubbles are indeed aligned along magnetic field lines, we use this data set to show that a plasma bubble with a percentage depletion of as much as 90% does not have as large an upward velocity as predicted by two-dimensional models. Instead, the inferred bubble velocity is shown to be in better agreement with the bubble velocity predicted by theoretical models using flux-tube-integrated values of electron density and Pedersen conductivity. The need to use flux-tube-integrated values when comparing theory and observation is further stressed by the presence of a non-uniform latitudinal distribution of electron density (i.e. the equatorial anomaly) that was found in the latitude-scan data.