Simulations and observations of heating of auroral ion beams

Two-dimensional three-velocity electrostatic particle simulations were used to determine the nonlinear evolution of the distributions of auroral ion beams and thereby to determine quantitatively signatures in the ion distributions produced by the ion-ion instability for a variety of plasma conditions in the auroral zone. The signatures determined from these simulations were compared with observations from DE 1, making it possible to characterize semiquantitatively the heating of the ionospheric ions, and to investigate the causes of variability seen in the observations of Reiff et al. (1988). A comparison of the simulation with observations showed features consistent with heating via the ion-ion instability including perpendicular heating in the supersonic regime and parallel heating in the subsonic regime, and a change in the heating between these regimes as the ratio of the H(+) beam speed to the local sound speed decreases.