The talk will cover 1) auroral physics and 2) a related contribution to hardware development:
1) Auroral physics. Current continuity and Ohm’s law control de closure of field-aligned currents (FACs) by ionospheric Pedersen and Hall currents at the bottom end of the auroral current circuit – and of the
magnetosphere-ionosphere (M-I) coupling chain. While the two laws are geometry independent, the specific applications to auroral electrodynamics can take advantage of aurora’s tendency towards elongated forms, be it auroral arcs and related FAC sheets, or the large-scale Region 1 / Region 2 FACs, underlying the auroral oval. The talk will address auroral electrodynamics, building on the ideal 1D geometry, complemented with realistic features, like longitudinal gradients and a thick ionosphere. M-I coupling implications of such features will be considered too, including prospects to take advantage of the (much broader) datasets observed at low altitudes to monitor magnetospheric processes.
2) Hardware development. Both science and operational needs require enhanced multi-point coverage, for example to resolve better the various multi-scale phenomena in the auroral M-I system and their potentially harmful space weather effects. Key technologies and payloads are currently developed, to equip future constellations of cost effective (small) satellites. Among those, the talk will focus on the PreAmplifier DIscriminator (PADI) ASIC, originally designed for time-of-flight measurements in high energy physics experiments, then adopted also by the Jovian Dynamic Composition sensor of the Particle Environment Package on JUICE (because of its time resolution, well below 1 ns, and radiation hardness). As proven by ongoing UAF work to develop the Additively Manufactured Particle Plasma Spectrometer, tuned for small/CubeSat platforms and for ‘mass scale’ production, PADI can provide a suitable front-end electronics solution also for such miniature, low power instruments.