High-Latitude Ionospheric Scintillations During Geomagnetic Disturbances

The Earth's plasmasphere is the vast `doughnut' shaped dense plasma region of the magnetosphere that is filled with cold ions and electrons of ionospheric origin. The plasmaspheric plasma density shows an abrupt drop by a factor of 5 or more around 4 - 6 Re (Re: Earth's radius). The boundary has been called `plasmapause'. Since the plasmaspheric cold plasma controls generation of plasma waves, their propagation features, and particle acceleration via wave-particle interaction, detailed investigation of the temporal and spatial variations of the plasmasphere and plasmapause location during a geomagnetic storm is important for understanding a change in plasma wave environments in the inner magnetosphere. Recent studies showed a good correlation between the mid-latitude ionospheric trough and the plasmapause for both geomagnetically quiet and disturbed conditions [1]. However, they did not reach the detailed investigation of the characteristics of spatial variation of the mid-latitude ionospheric trough and its temporal variation with high resolution due to limitation of a usage of global GIM of TEC. In this study, we investigate characteristics of temporal and spatial variations of the mid-latitude ionospheric trough during a geomagnetic storm which occurred on April 4, 2017 using the 5-min average Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Total Electron Content (TEC) data together with solar wind, interplanetary magnetic field, geomagnetic field, and Arase High Frequency Analyzer (HFA) (subcomponent of Plasma Wave Experiment (PWE)) observation data. As a result, the location of the mid-latitude ionospheric trough moves equatorward from 60 to 48 degrees within 4 hours after the onset of the storm main phase. The movement speed increases from 1.3 to 3.5 degrees of geomagnetic latitude per hour after the onset of storm-time substorm. The increasing speed means an abrupt shrink of the plasmasphere due to a sudden enhancement of convection electric field in the inner magnetosphere associated with the substorm onset. The location of the mid-latitude ionospheric trough identified from the minimum value of the GNSS-TEC data from the auroral to mid-latitude regions is almost in good agreement with that of an abrupt drop of electron density derived from the upper limit frequency of the upper hybrid resonance (UHR) waves detected by the HFA instrument onboard the Arase satellite. In this case, the electron density profile along the Arase orbit shows an irregular variation of the electron density near the plasmapause. During the main phase of the geomagnetic storm, the geomagnetic longitude distribution of the midlatitude trough location shows a wavy structure with its scale of 1000-2500 km. The shape of the wavy structure varies with time during the storm main phase. This phenomenon has not yet been reported before due to the limitation of ground dense GNSS receiver networks. After the start of the recovery phase of the geomagnetic storm, the mid-latitude ionospheric trough quickly moves poleward from 48 to 60 degrees in geomagnetic latitude within 4 hours in a geomagnetic longitude range of 310 - 360 degrees in geomagnetic longitude. The average speed of the poleward movement is 2.3 degrees of geomagnetic latitude per hour.

Ionospheric scintillation is a rapid fluctuation of radio-frequency signal phase and/or amplitude, generated as a signal passes through the ionosphere. It occurs when a radio frequency signal in the form of a plane wave traverses a region of small-scale irregularities in ionospheric electron density. The high-latitude ionosphere contains complex ionospheric density structures due to the coupling between the magnetosphere, ionosphere and thermosphere. This region is known to host frequent ionospheric scintillations.