Forward Acceleration of Ionospheric Electrons by NAU 40.75-kHz Whistler Waves Over Arecibo

Author

Rooker, Lisa A. ; Min-Chang Lee ; Pradipta, Rezy ; Ross, Laura M. ; Bozhi See ; Sulzer, Michael P. ; Tepley, Craig ; Gonzalez, S.A. ; Aponte, Nestor

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Boston Univ., Boston, MA, USA

Volume

41

Issue

11

fYear

2013

fDate

Nov. 2013

Firstpage

3159

Lastpage

3165

Abstract

We discuss a new mechanism to explain the forward acceleration of ionospheric electrons by whistler waves. We suggest this mechanism to be the key process responsible for our reported enhanced plasma lines detected by the Arecibo 430 MHz radar. These plasma lines are characterized by the frequency-downshifted spectra with a bandwidth of ~ 12 kHz. The backscatter radar operation indicates that electrons were accelerated upward along the Earth´s magnetic field by the up-going 40.75 kHz whistler waves, which were launched from the NAU transmitter. They covered a broad range of altitudes ( ~ 300 km) and lasted for a period of a few minutes. This mechanism leads to the energization of electrons of ~ 13 eV inferred from Arecibo experiments.

Keywords

ionosphere; whistlers; Arecibo experiments; Arecibo radar; Earth magnetic field; NAU transmitter; backscatter radar operation; electron energization; enhanced plasma lines; forward acceleration; frequency 40.75 kHz; frequency 430 MHz; frequency-downshifted spectra; ionospheric electrons; up-going whistler waves; Acceleration; Frequency measurement; Plasma measurements; Plasmas; Radar detection; Vectors; Backscatter radar; forward acceleration of ionospheric electrons; four wave interactions; frequency-upshifted and downshifted plasma lines; whistler wave-ionospheric plasma interactions;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Plasma Science, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0093-3813

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TPS.2013.2284158

Filename

6631468