SM51D-2586
Quantifying the auroral response from measured source populations of electrons and electromagnetic wave activity
Friday, 18 December 2015
Poster Hall (Moscone South)
Marilia Samara1, Robert Michell1,2, Guy Alan Grubbs II3, Rosemary K Davidson2, George V Khazanov4, Alex Glocer1 and Donald Hampton5, (1)NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, United States, (2)University of Maryland, College Park, MD, United States, (3)University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX, United States, (4)NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Heliophysics Sci. Div., Greenbelt, MD, United States, (5)University of Alaska Fairbanks, Geophysical Institute, Fairbanks, AK, United States
Abstract:
A case study is presented, where a quantitative connection is made between the measured auroral intensities and the source populations of electromagnetic waves and trapped electrons measured by THEMIS. We combine a theoretical model and high-resolution multi-spectral ground based imaging of the aurora at the THEMIS footpoint in order to interpret these data in the context of the coupled magnetosphere-ionosphere system. The THEMIS wave and particle measurements form the inputs into the Khazanov, et al., 2014 model that uses a Boltzman-Landau kinetic equation, uniformly describing the entire electron distribution function, which includes the affiliated production of secondary electrons (E < 600 eV) and their associated ionosphere-magnetosphere coupling processes. The model output will in turn be used to determine the expected auroral intensities (in Rayleighs) when considering only the primary precipitating electrons and also when both the primary and mirroring secondary electrons are included. These predicted auroral intensities will be compared to measured ones from several ground-based imagers at Poker Flat, AK, where we have high-resolution multiple emission line (557.7 nm and 427.8 nm) data at a 3.3 Hz frame rate.
