Plasma turbulence in the equatorial electrojet

Thesis/Dissertation · Sat Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1983

OSTI ID:5123463

Kudeki, E

Plasma turbulence in the daytime and nighttime equatorial electrojet is studied with a highly sophisticated radar interferometer technique. It is shown that the outer scale of the plasma turbulence scales with the zero order plasma density gradient length, and is smaller during the day because of increased recombinational damping. Observations indicate that the horizontally propagating coherent waves at the other scale dominate the electrojet turbulence and give rise to vertically propagating type 1 waves during strong electrojet conditions. According to the linear theory extended to the long wavelength regime the large scale primary modes are dispersive and have phase velocities considerably smaller than the mean driving electron velocity, in agreement with the interferometer observations. Vertical electron transport, a quasi-linear effect due to large scale wave action, is shown to give rise to a vertical dc current which has the right direction and magnitude to explain the up-down and possibly the east-west asymmetries observed at Jicamarca. These quasi-linear considerations also show that the first order perturbed vertical electron velocity associated with the primary mode is limited to a maximum value on the order of the mean horizontal electron velocity, which might explain why vertically propagating type 1 waves are only observed during strong electrojet conditions.

• Research Organization: Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY (USA)
• OSTI ID: 5123463
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

640201* -- Atmospheric Physics-- Auroral
Ionospheric
& Magetospheric Phenomena
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
ASYMMETRY
CURRENTS
EAST-WEST ASYMMETRY
ELECTRIC CURRENTS
ELECTROJETS
INTERFEROMETERS
MEASURING INSTRUMENTS
PLASMA
PLASMA DENSITY
RADAR
RANGE FINDERS
TURBULENCE
WAVE PROPAGATION