HF detection of slow long-lived E region plasma structures

During the equinox and winter seasons, and in the range 300-1000 km the Sas katoon Super Dual Amoral Radar Network (SuperDARN) radar often detects exte nded patches of coherent echoes with remarkably uniform properties and low Doppler speeds, in the range 0 to 200 m/s. Typically, these echoes last for similar to 3 hours, and are observed between 1300 and 2300 MLT, at times o f moderate to high K-p values. The echo Doppler shift changes systematicall y with azimuthal angle and a vector reconstruction of the implied drift ind icates westward velocities in the range 150 to 250 m/s, well below the thre shold speed associated with Farley-Buneman waves. When ionosonde observatio ns are available, they invariably show the presence of a thick sporadic E l ayer. This feature, plus the facts that the IMF B-y is always negative and that the echoes are equatorward of the regions of discrete precipitation (a s indicated by comparison with coincident DMSP satellite observations), ind icate that the echoes are associated with the diffuse aurora in regions whe re the electric field is of the order of 10 mV/m or less. We infer from the se echo properties that the irregularities are triggered by a primary gradi ent-drift mechanism which then cascades to the observed structures through weakly turbulent mode-coupling processes. Several events were observed duri ng special multifrequency experiments using the Saskatoon SuperDARN radar. It was found that the Doppler speed, power, and spectral width all increase systematically with increasing radar frequency. The findings for Doppler s peed and power appear to arise, at least in part, from the increase in heig ht of the radar echoes with increasing frequency. The frequency dependence of spectral width may be related to instability lifetimes; it was found to agree well with the results of numerical simulations [Keskinen et al., 1979 ].