Auroral Morphological Changes to the Formation of Auroral Spiral during the Late Substorm Recovery Phase: Polar UVI and Ground All-Sky Camera Observations

TL;DR

This study combines space-based and ground-based observations to analyze the formation and characteristics of auroral spirals during the late substorm recovery phase, revealing their magnetotail source regions and associated geomagnetic signatures.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the auroral spiral formation, linking ionospheric features with magnetotail activity during substorm recovery, using combined UVI and ground camera data.

Findings

Auroral spirals are associated with broad magnetotail regions from Xgsm ~ -40 to -70 RE.

Significant geomagnetic bays correlate with auroral spiral occurrences.

Auroral spirals can form during near-stable geomagnetic conditions.

Abstract

The ultraviolet imager (UVI) of the Polar spacecraft and an all-sky camera at Longyearbyen contemporaneously detected an auroral vortex structure (so-called "auroral spiral") on 10 January 1997. From space, the auroral spiral was observed as a "small spot" (one of an azimuthally-aligned chain of similar spots) in the poleward region of the main auroral oval from 18 h to 24 h magnetic local time. These auroral spots were formed while the substorm-associated auroral bulge was subsiding and several poleward-elongated auroral streak-like structures appeared during the late substorm recovery phase. During the spiral interval, the geomagnetically north-south and east-west components of the geomagnetic field, which were observed at several ground magnetic stations around Svalbard island, showed significant negative and positive bays caused by the field-aligned currents related with the aurora spiral appearance. The negative bays were reflected in the variations of local geomagnetic activity index (SML) which was provided from the SuperMAG magnetometer network at high latitudes. To pursue the spiral source region in the magnetotail, we trace each UVI image along field lines to the magnetic equatorial plane of the nightside magnetosphere using an empirical magnetic field model. Interestingly, the magnetotail region corresponding to the auroral spiral covered a broad region from Xgsm ~ -40 to -70 RE at Ygsm ~ 8 to 12 RE. The appearance of this auroral spiral suggests that extensive areas of the magnetotail (but local regions in the ionosphere) remain active even when the substorm almost ceases, and geomagnetic conditions are almost stable.