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Electric field and plasmadensity measurements in the strongly-driven daytime equatorial electrojet: 1. The unstablelayer and gradient drift waves

Document Type

Article

Journal/Book Title/Conference

Journal of Geophysical Research

Volume

92

Publisher

American Geophysical Union

Publication Date

1987

First Page

13578

Abstract

Electric field and plasma density instrumentation on board a sounding rocket launched from Punta Lobos, Peru, detected intense electrostatic waves indicative of plasma instabilities in the daytime equatorial electrojet. Simultaneous measurements taken by the Jicamarca radar showed strong 3-m type 1 electrojet echoes as well as evidence of kilometer scale horizontally propagating waves. The in situ electric field wave spectra displayed three markedly different height regions within the unstable layer: (1) a two-stream region on the topside between 103 and 111 km where the electron current was considered to be strongest, (2) a gradient drift region between 90 and 106.5 km wher the upward directed, zero-order electron density gradient was unstable, and (3) an ''interaction'' region between 103 and 106.5 km where both of these instabilities were linearly unstable. The unstable altitudes and differentiation showed good agreement with the simultaneous 3-m Jicamarca backscatter radar observations.

https://doi.org/10.1029/JA092iA12p13578

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