Abstract
The results are presented of combined measurements by the SWARM spacecraft (SC) and European incoherent scatter radar on Svalbard for two events of simultaneous observations: in the nighttime ionosphere during substorm activation on January 9, 2014, and in the daytime ionosphere under quiet conditions on February 5, 2017. Onboard magnetometers of the SWARM SC provide measurements of field-aligned current density over the ionosphere. The radar, which is under the flyby trajectory at this time, measures the vertical distribution of the electron density (Ne). Experiments have shown that, under disturbed nighttime conditions, at the location of the field-aligned current flowing from the ionosphere, the plasma density increases throughout the entire slab of the ionosphere and the change in Ne is in agreement with theoretical estimates. In the daytime quiet ionosphere, Ne increases only in the F layer, but practically does not change in the E layer. The differences may be due to the fact that, in the first case, the carriers of the upward directed current are represented by the entire energy spectrum of auroral electrons of 1–10 keV, and in the second case only by the low-energy part.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The data of the following measuring systems, which are freely available, were used in the work: SWARM SC (http://earth.esa.int/swarm), ESR radar via the MADRIGAL portal (http://portal.eiscat.se/madrigal/), maps of field-aligned currents through the Ampere portal (https:// ampere.jhuapl.edu), and the IMAGE auroral electrojet index (https://space.fmi.fi/image/www/index.php?#).
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Lukianova, R.Y. The Influence of Field-Aligned Currents on Electron Density in the Ionosphere: Combined Observations of SWARM Satellites and ESR Radar. Cosmic Res 61, 491–500 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1134/S0010952523700454
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/S0010952523700454