Disturbance in the Daytime Midlatitude Upper F Region Associated with a Medium Scale Electrodynamic Vortex Motion of Plasma

Abstract

Under the assumption of the presence of a medium-scale E × B drift vortex of plasma in the daytime midlatitude F region, and using a simplified ionospheric model, we demonstrate that the E × B drift produces noticeable perturbations in the horizontal distribution of the plasma density in the upper F region. The pattern of ion density perturbations shows two separate medium scale domains of enhanced and reduced ion density with respect to the background. The E × B drift does not produce multiple small-scale ion density irregularities through plasma mixing because of the suppression effect of the field-aligned ambipolar plasma diffusion.

Keywords

• midlatitude ionosphere
• ionospheric perturbations
• vortex motion of plasma