ARTIFICIAL STIMULATION OF AURORAL ELECTRON ACCELERATION BY INTENSE FIELD ALIGNED CURRENTS

A cesium doped high explosion was detonated at 165 km altitude in the auroral ionosphere during quiet conditions. An Alfvén wave pulse with a 200 mV/m electric field was observed with the peak occurring 135 ms after the explosion at a distance of about 1 km. The count rate of fixed energy 2 keV electron detectors abruptly increased at 140 mspeaked at 415 ms and indicated a downward field aligned beam of accelerated electrons. An anomalously high field aligned beam of backscattered electrons was also detected. We interpret the acceleration as due to a production of an electrostatic shock or double layer between 300 and 800 km altitude. The structure was probably formed by an instability of the intense field aligned currents in the Alfvén wave launched by the charge separation electric field due to the explosion. Copyright 1979 by the American Geophysical Union.