Ionospheric control of space weather

Abstract

As proposed by Saka (2019), plasma injections arising out of the auroral ionosphere (ionospheric injection) are a characteristic process of the polar ionosphere at substorm onset. The ionospheric injection is triggered by westward electric fields transmitted from the convection surge in the magnetosphere at field line dipolarization. Localized westward electric fields result in local accumulation of ionospheric electrons and ions, which produce local electrostatic potentials in the auroral ionosphere. Field-aligned electric fields are developed to extract excess charges from the ionosphere. This process is essential to the equipotential equilibrium of the auroral ionosphere. Cold electrons and ions that evaporate from the auroral ionosphere by ionospheric injection tend to generate electrostatic parallel potential below an altitude of 10 000 km. This is a result of charge separation along the mirror fields introduced by the evaporated electrons and ions moving earthward in phase space.