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Ion drag associated with the ionospheric plasma convection plays an important role in the high-latitude thermospheric dynamics, yet changes in the thermospheric wind with geomagnetic activity are not fully understood. We performed a statistical analysis of the thermospheric wind measurements with a Fabry–Perot interferometer (FPI; 630 nm wavelength) in Tromsø, Norway, in the winter months for 9 years. The measurements were sorted by a SuperMAG (SME) index, and a quiet-time wind pattern was defined as an hourly mean under SME ≤ 40 nT. The quiet-time wind pattern can be expected to be represented by a pressure gradient associated with the solar radiation and a geostrophic force balance. With an increase in the geomagnetic activity level, the thermospheric wind turned over from eastward to westward at dusk and increased the equatorward magnitude from midnight to dawn. Deviations from the quiet-time wind presented similar patterns in the direction with the ionospheric plasma convection but were larger in magnitude at dusk than at dawn. This is the first study to report a dawn-dusk asymmetry of the thermospheric wind acceleration feature and signatures of the eastward wind acceleration at dawn by ion drag.

The thermospheric wind response to a sudden westward turning of the ion velocity at a high latitude was studied by analyzing data obtained with a Fabry–Perot interferometer (FPI; 630 nm), Dynasonde, and Swarm A & C satellites during a conjunction event. The event occurred during a geomagnetically quiet period (Kp = 0 +) through the night, but some auroral activity occurred in the north. The collocated FPI and Dynasonde measured the thermospheric wind (U) and ionospheric plasma velocity (V), respectively, in the F region at the equatorward trough edge. A notable scientific message from this study is the possible role of thermospheric wind in the energy dissipation process at F-region altitude. The FPI thermospheric wind did not instantly follow a sudden V change due to thermospheric inertia in the F region. At a pseudo-breakup during the event, V suddenly changed direction from eastward to westward within 10 min. U was concurrently accelerated westward, but its development was more gradual than that of V, with U remaining eastward for a while after the pseudo-breakup. The delay of U is attributed to the thermospheric inertia. During this transition interval, U∙V was negative, which would result in more efficient generation of frictional heating than the positive U∙V case. The sign of U∙V, which is related to the relative directions of the neutral wind and plasma drift, is important because of its direct impact on ion-neutral energy exchange during collisions. This becomes especially important during substorm events, where rapid plasma velocity changes are common. The sign of U∙V may be used as an indicator to find the times and locations where thermospheric inertia plays a role in the energy dissipation process.

In recent years, aurora observation networks using high-sensitivity cameras have been developed in the polar regions. These networks allow dimmer auroras, such as pulsating auroras (PsAs), to be observed with a high signal-to-noise ratio. We reconstructed the horizontal distribution of precipitating electrons using computed tomography with monochromatic PsA images obtained from three observation points. The three-dimensional distribution of the volume emission rate (VER) of the PsA was also reconstructed. The characteristic energy of the reconstructed precipitating electron flux ranged from 6 to 23 keV, and the peak altitude of the reconstructed VER ranged from 90 to 104 km. We evaluated the results using a model aurora and compared the model’s electron density with the observed one. The electron density was reconstructed correctly to some extent, even after a decrease in PsA intensity. These results suggest that the horizontal distribution of precipitating electrons associated with PsAs can be effectively reconstructed from ground-based optical observations.

Data from three all-sky cameras in Kiruna and Tjautjas (Sweden) were used to estimate the altitude of pulsating arc-like forms using optical tomography. The event under consideration occurred during the substorm recovery phase and comprised both periodic luminosity variation of the on/off type with repetition periods of 3–6 s (main pulsations) and faster scintillation (approximately 2 Hz) during the “on” phase of the main pulsations. It is found that (1) the altitudes of the pulsating auroral arcs decrease during “on” intervals from ~ 95 km to ~ 92 km and (2) for two closely spaced arcs, internal modulation took place only in the lowest arc. The results may be interpreted in the frame of the traditional mechanism assuming electron scattering via VLF-wave/particle interaction in the equatorial magnetosphere, while the internal modulation may also be alternatively interpreted in the frame of the less-often inferred mechanism of field-aligned acceleration somewhere between the equatorial plane and ionosphere.

This study presents an improved method to estimate differential energy flux, auroral power and field-aligned current of electron precipitation from incoherent scatter radar data. The method is based on a newly developed data analysis technique that uses Bayesian filtering to fit altitude profiles of electron density, electron temperature, and ion temperature to observed incoherent scatter spectra with high time and range resolutions. The electron energy spectra are inverted from the electron density profiles. Previous high-time resolution fits have relied on the raw electron density, which is calculated from the backscattered power assuming that the ion and electron temperatures are equal. The improved technique is applied to one auroral event measured by the EISCAT UHF radar and it is demonstrated that the effect of electron heating on electron energy spectra, auroral power, and upward field-aligned current can be significant at times. Using the fitted electron densities instead of the raw ones may lead to wider electron energy spectra and auroral power up to 75% larger. The largest differences take place for precipitation that produces enhanced electron heating in the upper E region, and in this study correspond to fluxes of electrons with peak energies from 3 to 5 keV. Finally, the auroral power estimates are verified by comparison to the 427.8 nm auroral emission intensity, which shows good correlation. The improved method makes it possible to calculate unbiased estimates of electron energy spectra with high time resolution and thereby to study rapidly varying aurora.

Flash aurora driven by an isolated chorus element can be a useful ionospheric indicator for identifying the source wave properties via wave-particle interactions. Using ground observation and modeling approaches, here we report the temporal characteristics of flash aurora that depend on the chorus frequency width and the sweep rate. We found that the contraction time increases more than the expansion time in patchy auroral variations, due to the difference in the minimum electron energies resonated with the chorus wave packet away from the equatorial source to higher latitudes. Especially, the contraction time strongly depends on the higher-frequency chorus waves due to cyclotron resonance with lower-energy electrons. The model calculations support that the chorus element ranges from lower-band to upper-band frequencies with respect to half the gyrofrequency at the exact generation region. Our study provides the prompt (milliseconds) chorus-driven electron dynamics through the spatiotemporal characteristics of flash aurora in the ionosphere.

Using a ground-based five-wavelength photometer, which has been operative in Tromsø, Norway since February 2017, we have statistically analyzed the lifetime of O(1S) to reveal the emission altitude of pulsating aurora (PsA). For the statistics, we have extracted intervals of PsA using an EMCCD all-sky imager on 37 nights during 3 months from January to March, 2018. By performing a cross-correlation analysis between the time-series of 427.8 nm (N₂⁺ first negative band) and 557.7 nm oxygen emissions, we derived the distribution of the lifetime of O(1S). The mean of the lifetime is 0.67 s and the mode is around 0.7 s. We estimated the emission altitude of PsA using the lifetime of O(¹S) and then carried out a case study, in which we compared the temporal variations of the emission altitude with the peak height of E region ionization obtained from the simultaneous observation of the EISCAT UHF radar. We confirmed an overall agreement between the two parameters, indicating the feasibility of using the current method for estimating the energy of precipitating electrons causing PsA. In addition, we have derived the statistical characteristics of the emission altitude of PsA. The result shows that the emission altitude becomes lower in the morning side than in the midnight sector, which indicates that the energy of PsA electrons is higher in the later MLT sector. Especially, there is a decrease of the emission altitude at around 06 MLT. However, the model calculation infers that the energy of cyclotron resonance between magnetospheric electrons and whistler-mode chorus waves does not change so much depending on MLT. This implies that the observed change of the emission altitude cannot be explained only by the MLT dependence of resonance energy.

Chorus waves, among the most intense electromagnetic emissions in the Earth’s magnetosphere, magnetized planets, and laboratory plasmas, play an important role in the acceleration and loss of energetic electrons in the plasma universe through resonant interactions with electrons. However, the spatial evolution of the electron resonant interactions with electromagnetic waves remains poorly understood owing to imaging difficulties. Here we provide a compelling visualization of chorus element wave–particle interactions in the Earth’s magnetosphere. Through in-situ measurements of chorus waveforms with the Arase satellite and transient auroral flashes from electron precipitation events as detected by 100-Hz video sampling from the ground, Earth’s aurora becomes a display for the resonant interactions. Our observations capture an asymmetric spatial development, correlated strongly with the amplitude variation of discrete chorus elements. This finding is not theoretically predicted but helps in understanding the rapid scattering processes of energetic electrons near the Earth and other magnetized planets.

One of the representative auroral emission lines that radiates from F-region heights and is measurable on the ground is the 777.4 nm line from excited atomic oxygen. This line has been adopted, along with another E-region emission line, for example 427.8 nm, to estimate the mean energy and total energy flux of precipitating auroral electrons. The influence of emissions from part of the molecular nitrogen band, which mainly radiate from E-region heights, should be carefully evaluated because it might overlap the 777.4 nm atomic oxygen line in the spectrum. We performed statistical analysis of auroral spectrograph measurements that were obtained during the winter of 2016–2017 in Tromsø, Norway, to derive the ratio of the intensity of the 777.4 nm atomic oxygen line to that of the net measurement through a typically used optical filter with a full width at half maximum of a few nm. The ratio had a negative trend against geomagnetic activity, with a primary distribution of 0.5–0.7 and a minimum value of 0.3 for the most active auroral condition in this study. This result suggests that the 30–50% emission intensities measured through the optical filter may be from the molecular nitrogen band.

The plasmas (electrons and ions) in the inner magnetosphere have wide energy ranges from electron volts to mega-electron volts (MeV). These plasmas rotate around the Earth longitudinally due to the gradient and curvature of the geomagnetic field and by the co-rotation motion with timescales from several tens of hours to less than 10 min. They interact with plasma waves at frequencies of mHz to kHz mainly in the equatorial plane of the magnetosphere, obtain energies up to MeV, and are lost into the ionosphere. In order to provide the global distribution and quantitative evaluation of the dynamical variation of these plasmas and waves in the inner magnetosphere, the PWING project (study of dynamical variation of particles and waves in the inner magnetosphere using ground-based network observations, http://www.isee.nagoya-u.ac.jp/dimr/PWING/) has been carried out since April 2016. This paper describes the stations and instrumentation of the PWING project. We operate all-sky airglow/aurora imagers, 64-Hz sampling induction magnetometers, 40-kHz sampling loop antennas, and 64-Hz sampling riometers at eight stations at subauroral latitudes (~ 60° geomagnetic latitude) in the northern hemisphere, as well as 100-Hz sampling EMCCD cameras at three stations. These stations are distributed longitudinally in Canada, Iceland, Finland, Russia, and Alaska to obtain the longitudinal distribution of plasmas and waves in the inner magnetosphere. This PWING longitudinal network has been developed as a part of the ERG (Arase)-ground coordinated observation network. The ERG (Arase) satellite was launched on December 20, 2016, and has been in full operation since March 2017. We will combine these ground network observations with the ERG (Arase) satellite and global modeling studies. These comprehensive datasets will contribute to the investigation of dynamical variation of particles and waves in the inner magnetosphere, which is one of the most important research topics in recen