The cleft ion fountain: A two‐dimensional kinetic model

Abstract

The transport of ionospheric ions from a source in the polar cleft ionosphere through the polar magnetosphere is investigated using a two‐dimensional, kinetic, trajectory‐based code. The transport model includes the effects of gravitation, longitudinal magnetic gradient force, convection electric fields, and parallel electric fields. Individual ion trajectories as well as distribution functions and resulting bulk parameters of density, parallel average energy, and parallel flux for a presumed cleft ionosphere source distribution are presented for various conditions to illustrate parametrically the dependences on source energies, convection electric field strengths, ion masses, and parallel electric field strengths. The essential features of the model are consistent with the concept of a cleft‐based ion fountain supplying ionospheric ions to the polar magnetosphere, and the resulting plasma distributions and parameters are in general agreement with recent low‐energy ion measurements from the DE 1 satellite.