Ionospheric ion heating by ULF Pc 5 magnetic pulsations

Abstract

Frictional heating of the ions resulting from dc ionospheric electric fields is experimentally and theoretically well known. We extend these results to ion heating due to ULF magnetic pulsations of periods as low as 3 min. Ion temperature fluctuations as measured by the European incoherent scatter facility are very well correlated to magnetic Pc 5 pulsations. We present a method which estimates these ion temperature enhancements from ion velocity measurements.