Patches of ionization are common in the polar ionosphere, where their motion and associated density gradients give variable disturbances to high-frequency (HF) radio communications, over-the-horizon radar location errors, and disruption and errors to satellite navigation and communication. Their formation and evolution are poorly understood, particularly under disturbed space weather conditions. We report direct observations of the full evolution of patches during a geomagnetic storm, including formation, polar cap entry, transpolar evolution, polar cap exit, and sunward return flow. Our observations show that modulation of nightside reconnection in the substorm cycle of the magnetosphere helps form the gaps between patches where steady convection would give a "tongue" of ionization (TOI).

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Observational properties of throat aurora are investigated in detail by using 7 year continuous auroral observations obtained at Yellow River Station (magnetic latitude 76.24°N). From our inspection, throat aurora is often observed under the condition of stripy diffuse aurora contacting with the persistent discrete auroral oval, and the long‐period throat aurora observations generally consist of intermittent subsequences of throat aurora brightening followed by poleward moving auroral form and throat aurora dimming. We also noticed that the orientation of throat aurora is aligned along the ionospheric convection flow, and its local time distribution shows clear dependence on the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) By component. These observational results indicate that factors inside the magnetosphere may play important role on occurrence of throat aurora. We thus suggest that throat aurora may present the ionospheric signature of redistribution of reconnection rate on the magnetopause by cold magnetospheric plasma flowing into the reconnection site. In addition, we also found that the occurrence rate of throat aurora clearly decreases with increase of the IMF cone angle (arccos(|Bx|/B)), which is very similar with the occurrence rate of high‐speed jet (HSJ) observed in magnetosheath depending on the IMF cone angle. This is suggested as that the HSJs occurred outside the magnetosphere may also play important role for generation of throat aurora by triggering magnetopause reconnection or by direct impacting. Although further studies are needed to clarify how the throat auroras are generated in detail, the relevant observations about throat aurora have presented important implications on a variety open questions, such as distribution and generation of cold plasma structures in the outer magnetosphere, magnetopause deformation, and possible relation between HSJ and reconnection.

[1] A number of poleward moving events were observed between 1130 and 1300 UT on 11 February 2004, during periods of southward interplanetary magnetic field (IMF), while the steerable antenna of the European Incoherent Scatter (EISCAT) Svalbard radar (ESR) and the Tromsø VHF radar pointed nearly northward at low elevation. In this interval, simultaneous SuperDARN CUTLASS Finland radar measurements showed poleward moving radar aurora forms (PMRAFs) which appeared very similar to the density enhancements observed by the ESR northward pointing antenna. These events appeared quasiperiodically with a period of about 10 min. Comparing the observations from the above three radars, it is inferred that there is an almost one-to-one correspondence between the poleward moving plasma concentration enhancements (PMPCEs) observed by the ESR and the VHF radar and the PMRAFs measured by the CUTLASS Finland radar. These observations are consistent with the interpretation that the polar cap patch material was generated by photoionization at subauroral latitudes and that the plasma was structured by bursts of magnetopause reconnection giving access to the polar cap. There is clear evidence that plasma structuring into patches was dependent on the variability in IMF |B y |. The duration of these events implies that the average evolution time of the newly opened flux tubes from the subauroral region to the polar cap was about 33 min.

By using 7 years optical auroral observations obtained at Yellow River Station (magnetic latitude 76.24°N) at Ny-Alesund, Svalbard, we performed the first extensive survey for the dayside diffuse auroras (DDAs) and acquired observational results as follows.(1) The DDAs can be classified into two broad categories, i.e., unstructured and structured DDAs. The unstructured DDAs are mainly distributed in morning and afternoon, but the structured DDAs predominantly occurred around the magnetic local noon (MLN). (2) The unstructured DDAs observed in morning and afternoon present obviously different properties. The afternoon ones are much stable and seldom show pulsating property. (3) The DDAs are more easily observed under geomagnetically quiet times. (4) The structured DDAs mainly show patchy, stripy, and irregular forms and are often pulsating and drifting. The drifting directions are mostly westward (with speed ~5 km/s), but there are cases showing eastward or poleward drifting. ( 5) The stripy DDAs are exclusively observed near the MLN and, most importantly, their alignments are confirmed to be consistent with the direction of ionospheric convection near the MLN. (6) A new auroral form, called throat aurora, is found to be developed from the stripy DDAs. Based on the observational results and previous studies, we proposed our explanations to the DDAs. We suggest that the unstructured DDAs observed in the morning are extensions of the nightside diffuse aurora to the dayside, but that observed in the afternoon are predominantly caused by proton precipitations. The structured DDAs occurred near the MLN are caused by interactions of cold plasma structures, which are supposed to be originated from the ionospheric outflows or plasmaspheric drainage plumes, with hot electrons from the plasma sheet. We suppose that the cold plasma structures for producing the patchy DDAs are in lumpy and are more likely from the plasmaspheric drainage plumes. The cold plasma structure for producing the stripy DDAs should be in wedge like and is generated by conveying the cold plasmas from lower L-shell toward higher L-shell with magnetospheric convection, and that for producing the irregular DDAs is resulted from deforming the wedge-like structure by disturbance. The throat aurora is supposed to be projection of a newly opened flux of reconnection. In addition, we also found that structured DDAs correspond to structured electron precipitations in the ionosphere, which implies that the cold plasma structures in the magnetosphere are magnetically mapped to the ionosphere and act as a duct for producing the structured DDAs. We argue that we have presented some new observational results about DDA in this paper, which will be useful for fully understanding the DDAs.