Mh. Boehm et al., OBSERVATIONS OF AN UPWARD-DIRECTED ELECTRON-BEAM WITH THE PERPENDICULAR TEMPERATURE OF THE COLD IONOSPHERE, Geophysical research letters, 22(16), 1995, pp. 2103-2106
The Freja TESP electron spectrometer has repeatedly observed similar t
o 100 eV - 1 keV upward-directed, anti-field-aligned electron beams ne
ar 1700 km altitude in the auroral zone. A particularly intense event,
at energies up to 2 keV, is described. The beam perpendicular tempera
ture T perpendicular to(e)), was as low as 0.1-0.2 eV at 100-200 eV pa
rallel energy. The 10-15 s period of upward fluxes was coincident with
a low density (similar to 10 cm(-3)) period and a similar to 5 keV io
n conic. Strong low frequency waves and the lack of any downward motio
n in the simultaneously observed ion conic suggest a strong element of
wave acceleration, while electric field and ion loss cone measurement
s provide limited evidence of potential acceleration to a fraction of
the observed energies.