The Heiss Island Imaging Photometer

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This proposal requests support to build and install an intensified all-sky imaging photometer (ASIP) and to investigate a variety of phenomena related to the dayside cusp in darkness and polar cap sun-aligned arcs. The imager will be located at Heiss Island, Russia and will operate continuously during the winter months. The Heiss Island imager will constitute the eastward most anchor of a chain of all-sky imagers currently extended for Resolute Bay, Canada, through Greenland and up to Svalbard, Norway. The imager, in addition of being used for studies of the cusp and the behavior of polar cap arcs, will be able to probe the dayside aurora with high temporal resolution, diagnose substorm related oval expansions, detect sun-aligned arcs in the near oval sector, and follow polar cap patches before being reconfigured into auroral blobs. The Heiss Island imager, used in conjunction with the DMSP and Polar satellites and with the EISCAT and Svalbard incoherent scattering radars, will allow US investigators to conduct research in this region populated by several diagnostic techniques. The science proposed here specifically deals with 1) understanding the formation and motion of sun-aligned arcs near the auroral oval and 2) imaging dayside transient events in the cusp/cleft region with high temporal and spatial resolution to investigate whether merging proceeds at multiple sites or instead over an extended merging line. Funds are requested for building and installing an imager, and analyzing, interpreting, and distributing the data. Additionally, partial support for post-doctorate participation is requested.