Magnetospheric Signatures of STEVE
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RESEARCH LETTER Magnetospheric Signatures of STEVE: Implications 10.1029/2019GL082460 for the Magnetospheric Energy Source and Key Points: • Magnetosphere observations show Interhemispheric Conjugacy that STEVE corresponds to SAID, Y. Nishimura1,2 , B. Gallardo‐Lacourt3 , Y. Zou4,5 , E. Mishin6 , D. J. Knudsen3 , plasmapause, structured plasma 3 7 8 boundaries, and waves in the E. F. Donovan , V. Angelopoulos , and R. Raybell magnetosphere 1 • The picket fence is driven by Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Center for Space Physics, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA, electron precipitation; the red arc is 2Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA, 3Department of fl driven by heat ux or frictional Physics and Astronomy, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, 4Department of Astronomy and Center for Space heating Physics, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA, 5Cooperative Programs for the Advancement of Earth System Science, • Simultaneous conjugate 6 observations show that part of University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, USA, Space Vehicles Directorate, Air Force Research STEVE has interhemispheric Laboratory, Kirtland AFB, Albuquerque, NM, USA, 7Department of Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences, University of conjugacy California, Los Angeles, CA, USA, 8Citizen scientist, Seattle, WA, USA Abstract We present three STEVE (strong thermal emission velocity enhancement) events in Correspondence to: Y. Nishimura, conjunction with Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions (THEMIS) in the magnetosphere [email protected] and Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) and Swarm in the ionosphere, for determining equatorial and interhemispheric signatures of the STEVE purple/mauve arc and picket fence. Both types of Citation: STEVE emissions are associated with subauroral ion drifts (SAID), electron heating, and plasma waves. The Nishimura, Y., Gallardo‐Lacourt, B., magnetosphere observations show structured electrons and flows and waves (likely kinetic Alfven, Zou, Y., Mishin, E., Knudsen, D. J., magnetosonic, or lower‐hybrid waves) just outside the plasmasphere. Interestingly, the event with the picket Donovan, E. F., et al. (2019). fi ‐ Magnetospheric signatures of STEVE: fence had a >~1 keV electron structure detached from the electron plasma sheet, upward eld aligned Implications for the magnetospheric currents (FACs), and ultraviolet emissions in the conjugate hemisphere, while the event with only the energy source and interhemispheric mauve arc did not have precipitation or ultraviolet emission. We suggest that the electron precipitation conjugacy. Geophysical Research Letters, 46, 5637–5644. https://doi.org/10.1029/ drives the picket fence, and heating drives the mauve as thermal emission. 2019GL082460 Plain Language Summary STEVE (strong thermal emission velocity enhancement) has Received 14 FEB 2019 become increasingly popular among citizen scientists due to its distinct colors and structures of Accepted 9 APR 2019 emission in the night sky and its occurrence over more populated areas than for typical aurora in the Accepted article online 16 APR 2019 auroral oval. This study addresses two major questions of STEVE: What is the energy source of the Published online 4 JUN 2019 STEVE purple or mauve colored arc and green picket fence up in space? and Does STEVE occur in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres at the same time? Using a set of imaging and satellite observations, this study found that STEVE is connected to fast plasma flows, sharp plasma boundaries, and intense waves 25,000 km (15,000 miles) up in space. Photographs taken by citizen scientists have played a key role in finding STEVE and its morphology. Plasma heating due to the fast flows and waves is suggested to drive the mauve colored arc. But this mechanism does not explain the picket fence. We found that energetic particle precipitation drives the picket fence. The picket fence is found to occur in both hemispheres at the same time, supporting that the energy source far up in space feeds energy to both hemispheres. 1. Introduction STEVE (strong thermal emission velocity enhancement) is a recently discovered upper atmospheric emis- sion in the subauroral ionosphere (MacDonald et al., 2018). Its primary feature is the purple or mauve color arc that is approximately east‐west aligned, which is distinctly different from aurora near the equatorward boundary of the auroral oval. STEVE arcs sometimes also exhibit green‐colored rays known as picket fence, which appear to form at lower altitudes than the mauve arc (MacDonald et al., 2018). STEVE arcs occur at premidnight MLTs (Gallardo‐Lacourt, Nishimura, et al., 2018) and are associated with the subauroral ion drifts (SAID), enhanced electron temperature, and downward field‐aligned currents (FACs) at the midlati- ‐ ©2019. American Geophysical Union. tude trough (MacDonald et al., 2018). The event studied by Gallardo Lacourt, Liang, et al. (2018) does not All Rights Reserved. show any substantial precipitation of energetic particles over the STEVE arc, suggesting that the arc is not NISHIMURA ET AL. 5637 Geophysical Research Letters 10.1029/2019GL082460 aurora but thermal emission due to elevated the elevated temperature that is caused by heat flux or ion‐neutral frictional heating. Regardless of precipitation, a possible energy source is substorm injections because STEVE arcs tend to occur during the substorm recovery phase (Gallardo‐Lacourt, Nishimura, et al., 2018). This is consistent with the occurrence characteristics of SAID (Anderson et al., 1993, 2001). A type of stable auroral red (SAR) arc also shows a connection to substorms (Takagi et al., 2018), although STEVE arcs are distinct from SAR arcs because of their different spectral characteristics. Past studies of STEVE arcs have been limited to observations by ground‐based imaging and low‐altitude satellites. It is unknown what the magnetosphere counterpart of STEVE arcs (for both the purple/mauve arc and picket fence) is and whether STEVE arcs simultaneously occur in both hemispheres. Another major question is what process makes a difference between the mauve arc and green picket fence. Although the emission in the F region ionosphere could be explained by thermal emission under elevated temperature (also known as the mechanism of SAR arcs; such as Nagy et al., 1970; Sazykin et al., 2002), there have been no studies of the magnetospheric source of the purple/mauve arc. Moreover, the F region heating process does not create substantial green line emission, suggesting that additional unresolved processes exist asso- ciated with STEVE arcs. To address these questions, we examined magnetosphere signatures of STEVE arcs by using three conjunc- tion events with Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions (THEMIS), whose footprints passed within 1‐hr magnetic local time (MLT) from the areas of STEVE arcs detected by the citizen scientist coauthors or by the THEMIS all‐sky imager (ASI) network. The northern footprints of the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) and Swarm satellites also passed through during the STEVE arcs analyzed here. The magnetospheric satellites provide measurements of DC and AC electric and magnetic fields and particle energy spectra in the inner magnetosphere. The ASIs and low‐altitude satellites were used to check that the arcs of interest were located equatorward of the auroral oval. DMSP measures ionospheric density, velocity, magnetic field, and precipitating particles every 1 s and temperature every 4 s at ~800‐km altitude. Radiation belt contamination in the particle data has been subtracted. The Special Sensor Ultraviolet Spectrographic Imager (SSUSI) instrument onboard DMSP detects far ultraviolet (FUV) emis- sions at 165‐ to 180‐nm wavelength along the orbits, which are sensitive to energetic electron precipitation. Swarm at 400‐ to 500‐km altitude provides a similar set of data except for energetic particles. Swarm also gives 16‐Hz flow (electric field) and 50‐Hz magnetic field for wave analysis. 2. Results 2.1. The 8 May 2016 Event (With Picket Fence) A STEVE arc was measured at the West Coast of North America near 55° magnetic latitude on 8 May 2016. The arc existed at least between 5:50 and 6:34 UT based on multiple citizen scientist reports. It occurred during the storm main phase (−55 nT Dst) and high auroral activity (~1,000 nT AE). One of the photographs taken at 6:00 UT is shown in Figure 1a. The mauve (or red to white)‐colored emission of STEVE was approxi- mately east‐west aligned and located equatorward of the premidnight auroral oval (seen as green diffuse aurora near the northern horizon, also seen as the equatorward boundary of white light aurora in Figure 1b), which are the typical properties of STEVE. This event also shows a distinct picket fence as green quasiperiodic rays. Using the star positions, the red channel of the image was projected to 250‐km altitude (see MacDonald et al. (2018) for the projection altitude) and is overlaid on Figure 1b. STEVE was located ~1.5–2° equatorward of the auroral oval equatorward boundary (dashed line). Fortunately, the northern magnetic footprints of DMSP, Swarm, and THEMIS‐E passed over the area during the lifetime of the STEVE arc. Although DMSP F17 and Swarm‐A were in the Southern Hemisphere, the SSUSI data on DMSP F17 show that the STEVE arc in this event was a conjugate phenomenon (Figure 1c, showing the detached arc at ~55° magnetic latitude and ~20 MLT).