SA11C-3950:
Unified Model of Type I and Type II Turbulence in the Equitorial E-Layer Plasma
Monday, 15 December 2014
Wendell Horton Jr1, Ehab Hassan1, A. Smolyakov2, Sandeep Litt2 and D.R. Hatch3, (1)University of Texas at Austin, IFS and Applied Research Laboratory, Austin, TX, United States, (2)University of Saskatoon, Physics, Saskatchewan, Canada, (3)University of Texas at Austin, Institute for Fusion Studies, Austin, TX, United States
Abstract:
A new unified two-fluid model for the E-layer for the Type I and Type II plasma instabilities is developed and simulated for the nonlinear dynamics of the electron density, the electric fields, and ion fluid acceleration. Profiles and parameters are taken from the IRI data for the equitorial region ionosphere. Large, spectral simulations for the turbulence and the coherent structures are carried out. The fields are recorded for each sub-second time step in both physical space and wavenubmer space. The growth rate has two peaks in horizontal wavenumber and the nonlinear cascades go both to small scales [~10cm] and large scales [~10-50m]. Horizontal and vertical wavenumber spectra are shown as well as the isotropized energy spectrum of k-n. The S4 scintillation index computed from the density fluctuations and the PDFs for intermittency from the density fluctuations are computed. The PDFs and the net electron density fluxes are computed. Examples are run where the upward density gradient (Type II) is the dominant instability mechanism.
