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Machida & Goertz 1988
Machida, S. and Goertz, C.K. (1988). Computer simulation of the Farley-Buneman instability and anomalous electron heating in the auroral ionosphere. Journal of Geophysical Research 93: doi: 10.1029/88JA00468. issn: 0148-0227.

We study the nonlinear saturation of the Farley-Buneman instability in a collisional plasma by a 2 1/2 dimensional electrostatic particle simulation which includes inelastic and elastic collisions of electrons and elastic collision of ions with neutrals. In our simulation, a uniform convection electric field is applied externally so that the relative velocity between the electrons and ions is greater than the ion sound speed and destabilizes the instability. We find a nonlinear frequency shift from higher to lower frequencies and diffusion of the wave spectrum in two dimensional wave number space. We are especially interested in finding whether the saturated wave turbulence can account for the anomalous heating rates observed in the polar ionosphere by Schlegel and St.-Maurice (1981). We find that the dominant mechanism for electron heating is due to an enhanced effective electron collision frequency and hence enhanced resistive heating as suggested by Primdahl (1986) and Robinson (1986) and not due to the heating of electrons by the electric field of the waves parallel to the magnetic field. For the ionospheric conditions discussed by Schlegel and St.-Maurice (1981) we find an anomalous heating rate of about 4¿10-7 W/m3. ¿ American Geophysical Union 1988

BACKGROUND DATA FILES

Abstract

Keywords
Ionosphere, Plasma waves and instabilities, Space Plasma Physics, Numerical simulation studies, Space Plasma Physics, Wave/particle interactions, Ionosphere, Auroral ionosphere
Journal
Journal of Geophysical Research
http://www.agu.org/journals/jb/
Publisher
American Geophysical Union
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