Naturally Enhanced Ion-Acoustic Spectra And Their Interpretation

Incoherent scatter radars are designed to detect scatter from thermalfluctuations in the ionosphere. These fluctuations contain, among other things,features associated with ion-acoustic waves driven by random motions within theplasma. The resulting spectra are generally broad and noisy, but neverthelessthe technique can, through a detailed analysis of spectra, be used to measure arange of physical parameters in the Earth's upper atmosphere, and provides apowerful diagnostic in studies of magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling,thermosphere dynamics and the geospace environment in general. In recent yearsthere has been much interest in naturally occurring (as opposed to artificiallystimulated) enhanced ion-acoustic spectra seen in the auroral zone andcusp/cleft region. A study of the plasma instability processes that lead tosuch spectra will help us to better understand auroral particle acceleration,wave-particle and wave-wave interactions in the ionosphere, and theirassociation with magnetospheric processes. There is now a substantial body ofliterature documenting observations of enhanced ion-acoustic spectra, but thereremains controversy over generation mechanisms. We present a review ofliterature documenting observations of naturally enhanced ion-acoustic spectra,observed mainly along the geomagnetic field direction, along with a discussionof the theories put forward to explain such phenomena.