Polar cap patch segmentation of the tongue of ionization in the morning convection cell

• Published in: Geophysical Research Letters
• Main Authors: Zhang, Q. H., Zhang, B. C., Moen, J., Lockwood, M., McCrea, I. W., Yang, H. G., Hu, H. Q., Liu, R. Y., Zhang, S. R., Lester, Mark
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: American Geophysical Union 2014
• Subjects: Science & Technology; Physical Sciences; Geosciences; Multidisciplinary; Geology; Polar cap patches; tongue of ionization; poleward-moving plasma concentration enhancements; EISCAT SVALBARD RADAR; MAGNETOPAUSE RECONNECTION; IONOSPHERE; BOUNDARY; DYNAMICS; DENSITY; FLOWS; Svalbard; EISCAT
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2381/28734; http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/grl.50616/abstract; https://doi.org/10.1002/grl.50616

Two types of poleward moving plasma concentration enhancements (PMPCEs) were observed during a sequence of pulsed reconnection events, both in the morning convection cell: Type L (low density) was associated with a cusp flow channel and seems likely to have been produced by ionization associated with particle precipitation, while Type H (high density) appeared to originate from the segmentation of the tongue of ionization by the processes which produced the Type L events. As a result, the Type L and Type H PMPCEs were interspersed, producing a complex density structure which underlines the importance of cusp flow channels as a mechanism for segmenting and structuring electron density in the cusp and shows the necessity of differentiating between at least two classes of electron density patches. STFC grant ST/H002480/1 Peer-reviewed Publisher Version