Papers from SWICo members

P. De Michelis and R. Tozzi

The physical parameters which describe many fluid and plasma systems, such as density, velocity, temperature, and electric and magnetic fields, are often characterized by fluctuating values. When the fluctuations are observed over many spatial and temporal scales and a nonlinear transfer of energy occurs between the different scales, the system is generally said to be in a turbulent state. Several interplanetary space environments, such as solar wind, ion foreshock, the magnetosheath, and the magnetotail and, last but not least, the ionosphere, have been found to be in a turbulent state.

Turbulence crucially influences the cross-scale coupling of the dynamical processes: it can influence the transport of mass, momentum, and energy from solar wind and the magnetosphere to the ionosphere and can also perturb the equilibrium structure of the ionosphere, as well as the plasma dynamics and particle energization at many locations in the ionosphere. Here, we review some recent findings on the multiscale and turbulent character of the ionosphere, with a special emphasis on high-latitudes. In particular, we analyse some scaling features of magnetic field fluctuations, relating them to their spectral properties and the occurrence of intermittency phenomena.

Publication: P. De Michelis and R. Tozzi, “Multiscale Analysis of the Turbulent Ionospheric Medium”, Chapter 19 in “The Dynamical Ionosphere”, Editors: M. Materassi, B. Forte, A. Coster and S. Skone, Elsevier 2020.
https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-814782-5.00019-4