Multipoint Measurements of Field Aligned Current Density in the Auroral Zone

Yihua Zheng
University of New Hampshire

In the talk I will present the analysis and interpretation of a multipoint observation of magnetic field structures at the poleward edge of a premidnight auroral arc from the Enstrophy sounding rocket mission. Both spatial and temporal signatures were found to be present in the event where the large B fluctuations were seen at the edge of an arc when the rocket flew into the polar cap. Reasons for the interpretation of spatial or temporal features are given, and supported by: 1) a simple model of multiple payloads crossing through several moving current sheets, 2) non-zero deflection in magnetic field magnitude, and 3) the fine structure study of this auroral event using multipoint, correlative wavelet analysis. While this talk concentrates on data from one sounding rocket mission, data analysis methods (including the magnetic field data reduction, the multipoint measurement of FAC density, wavelet analysis and correlation study for multipoint measurements) and science questions concerning multipoint data sets are of increasing importance to the whole space science community.