This paper deals with the modeling of the ionospheric plasma. Starting from the two-fluid Euler–Maxwell equations, we present two hierarchies of models. The MHD hierarchy deals with large plasma density situations while the dynamo hierarchy is adapted to lower density situations. Most of the models encompassed by the dynamo hierarchy are classical ones, but we shall give a unified presentation of them which brings a new insight into their interrelations. By contrast, the MHD hierarchy involves a new (at least to the authors) model, the massless-MHD model. This is a diffusion system for the density and magnetic field which could be of great practical interest. Both hierarchies terminate with the "classical" Striation model, which we shall investigate in detail.

Revised version (new material: a section on the numerical boundary conditions, some minor modifications)International audienceMost of deterministic solvers for rarefied gas dynamics use discrete velocity (or discrete ordinate) approximations of the distribution function on a Cartesian grid. This grid must be sufficiently large and fine to describe the distribution functions at every space position in the computational domain. For 3-dimensional hypersonic flows, like in re-entry problems, this induces much too dense velocity grids that cannot be practically used, for memory storage requirements. In this article, we present an approach to generate automatically a locally refined velocity grid adapted to a given simulation. This grid contains much less points than a standard Cartesian grid and allows us to make realistic 3-dimensional simulations at a reduced cost, with a comparable accuracy

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