Effects on the plasmasphere of irregular electric fields

A conservative convection electric field model developed by Volland (1973) to describe the solar wind induced plasma flow within the inner magnetosphere is modified to include a noisy spatial component. Under steady state conditions such a random component will result in spatial irregularities in the thermal plasma density distribution in the vicinity of the plasmapause—particularly near dusk. Spatial irregularities in the convection can produce longitudinally restricted perturbations near the plasmapause some of which are detached from the main body of the plasmasphere. Temporal variations in the midnight to noon flow intensity are shown to produce elongated extensions of the plasmasphere known as plasmatails but even short period variations of the overall magnitude of the convection cannot produce longitudinally localized perturbations in the thermal plasma distribution. Convection models based on the 3 hr magnetic index K_p yield plasmasphere structures which are qualitatively similar to those based on shorter period variations, but the exact location at any given time of the plasmapause is dependent upon the characteristic time scale employed.