A study of physical mechanisms involved in the coupling between the ionosphere, the magnetosphere, and the thermosphere: an ionospheric perspective

100至500公里高度范围内的电离层和中性大气都受到开始于太阳表面并产生太阳风的过程的强烈影响。磁层从太阳风接收能量和动量。其中很大一部分能量和动量被传递给电离层，而电离层又将其转移到中性大气中。这个研究项目的主要重点是研究与电离层和中性大气的耦合是如何展开的。这在一定程度上意味着对湍流过程的研究，观测范围从厘米到数千公里。在这方面，我们把大量的研究放在几米尺度上，这特别有趣，因为它们很容易被雷达探测到，在这个过程中揭示了更大尺度环流的许多细节，有时还指出了激烈的局部过程。沿着这些思路，我们研究了电离层对强大的无线电波加热器的反应。在另一种研究中，我们还研究了电离层中有时如何在响应磁层扰动的情况下形成大的局部电场和电流。我们探索了这些电离层产生的过程和离子从电离层流出到磁层之间的联系，并研究了中性大气对这些地区发生的局部电流的反应。最后，我们仍然以更全面的视角看待该系统，并研究太阳风提供的等离子体环流如何与极光活动有关，无论是通过磁亚暴还是其他类型的事件。我们的这一部分研究延伸到了当来自低纬度的等离子体有时被注入极冠纬度的事件。

The ionosphere and the neutral atmosphere in the 100 to 500 km altitude range are both strongly affected by processes that start near the surface of the sun and give rise to the solar wind. The magnetosphere receives energy and momentum from the solar wind. A large part of this energy and momentum is imparted to the ionosphere, which in turn transfers it to the neutral atmosphere. The primary focus of this research project is to study just how the coupling to the ionosphere and neutral atmosphere is unfolding. This means in part the study of turbulent processes, which are observed on scales ranging from cm to thousands of km. In this respect, we devote a substantial part of our research to scales a few m in size, which are particularly interesting because they are easily detected by radars, revealing in the process many details about larger scale circulation as well as at times pointing to violent local processes. Along these lines, we study how the ionosphere reacts to powerful radio wave heaters. In a separate kind of study we also investigate how sometimes large local electric fields and currents form in the ionosphere in response to magnetospheric perturbations. We explore the link between these ionospheric generated processes and ion outflows from the ionosphere to the magnetosphere, and we also study how the neutral atmosphere reacts to the local electrical currents that take place in these regions. Finally, we take a more global view still of the system and study how the plasma circulation imparted by the solar wind is related to auroral activity, be it through magnetic substorms or other kinds of events. This part of our study extends to events when plasma from lower latitudes is sometimes injected to polar cap latitudes.