Origins and variation of terrestrial energetic neutral atoms outflow

摘要

Analysis of ENA data from the LENA instrument on the IMAGE spacecraft shows that the terrestrial atmosphere is a copious emitter of energetic neutral atoms (<300 eV) under all conditions. When activity is low, the observed emissions are concentrated close to the Earth and are presumed to be the high-energy tail of the warm oxygen geocorona, with energies <2 eV. When activity increases, the relative abundance of the higher-energy neutrals increases, and the emissions can be seen farther from the Earth. Because of the close correlation between the postperigee ENA flux (fluxes seen 1–2 hours after spacecraft perigee) and Ap and the fact that the postperigee fluxes are seen when no magnetic storm is in progress we conclude that many of the emitted ENA come from the auroral zone and are produced by energized ionospheric ions rather than by precipitating energetic ions. In more spectacular events, such as the Bastille Day storm event (14–16 July 2000), oxygen neutral emissions produced by precipitation of keV ring current oxygen ions can also make an important contribution to the total neutral emission. We conclude that diurnal variation in ENA emissions is a winter hemisphere feature that is absent in the summer hemisphere. As activity increases, the altitude range of the auroral oval ENA emission region increases.