Plasmasphere Modeling with Ring Current Heating

Coulomb collisions between ring current ions and the thermal plasma in the plasmasphere will heat the plasmaspheric electrons and ions. During a storm such heating would lead to significant changes in the temperature and density of the thermal plasma. This was modeled using a time- dependent, one-stream hydrodynamic model for plasmaspheric flows, in which the model flux tube is connected to the ionosphere. The model simultaneously solves the coupled continuity, momentum, and energy equations of a two-ion (H(+) and O(+) quasineutral, currentless plasma. Heating rates due to collisions with ring current ions were calculated along the field line using a kinetic ring current model. First, diurnally reproducible results were found assuming only photoelectron heating of the thermal electrons. Then results were found with heating of the H(+) ions by the ring current during the recovery phase of a magnetic storm.