Extreme polar cap density enhancements along magnetic field lines during an intense geomagnetic storm

Abstract

Sounding measurements from the radio plasma imager (RPI) on the IMAGE satellite are used to derive electron number density distributions along magnetic field lines in the polar cap magnetosphere during an intense magnetic storm. It is shown that electron densities along magnetic field lines in the polar cap magnetosphere were greatly enhanced on both the dayside and nightside during the storm, compared to the electron density profiles measured during periods of lower geomagnetic activities. The electron density enhancements were observed extending to 7 Earth radii (RE) in altitude on the dayside, with the electron density value reaching about 10 cm-3 at 7 R E altitude. The observed density enhancements were likely due to the enhanced cleft ion fountain during the storm although some of nightside density enhancements might be caused by the increased ion outflows locally in the polar cap. The strongest electron density enhancements observed on the dayside are possibly further associated with storm-time transport of plasma from the midlatitude ionosphere and plasmasphere to high latitudes, which manifests as a plasma plume intruding to dayside high latitudes as seen from total electron content (TEC) maps. With an enhanced source population supplied by the plasma plume, acceleration and heating processes in the dayside cusp/auroral region may produce a large flux of outflowing plasma along magnetic field lines while the outflowing plasma is convected anti-sunward toward the polar cap. These processes lead to strongly enhanced cleft ion fountain and thus greatly raised electron densities at magnetospheric altitudes in the polar cap. The present study captures an event of a massive redistribution of the magnetospheric and ionospheric plasma during a geomagnetic storm caused by extreme solar wind/interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) conditions. Copyright 2007 by the American Geophysical Union.