A generation model of small-scale geomagnetic field-aligned plasma inhomogeneities in the ionosphere

摘要

The dissipative instability of acoustic-gravity waves in the ionosphere is investigated. This instability results in formatting the horizontal periodic structure of conductivity disturbances which move with the velocities considerably less than the sound velocity. In the presence of an external DC electric field the conductivity variations in the E-layer lead to an appearance of polarization electric fields propagating into the upper ionosphere and generating the plasma density variations at these altitudes. Estimates of the space-time and amplitude characteristics of the excited ionospheric disturbances and their comparison with the experimental data show that the developed mechanism can be applied to generation model of the earthquake-related small-scale plasma inhomogeneities in the upper ionosphere.