An Auroral Signature of the Duskside Boundary of the Cusp

Abstract

The cusp is a region in which the solar wind plasma can directly penetrate into the ionosphere. Most previous studies mainly focused on the low- and high-latitude boundaries of the cusps, the identification of the dawnside and duskside boundaries of them appears to be questionable. The auroras are the ionospheric manifestations of solar-terrestrial energy coupling. This paper presents a new approach to diagnose the duskside boundary of the cusp with the observation of a particular polar cap arc (PCA) located near the ∼1500 magnetic local time sector (15MLT-PCA). Using measurements from Defense Meteorological Satellite Program satellite, we selected several 15MLT-PCA examples where the satellite flew over different regions and analyze the particle characteristics. We identified the precipitating particles in dawnside and duskside regions next to 15MLT-PCA are from the low latitude boundary layer/cusp and boundary plasma sheet/central plasma sheet respectively. The statistical result further confirms our findings. Therefore, we proposed that 15MLT-PCA can be used as an identifiable optical signature of the duskside boundary of the cusp. This paper provides a valuable approach to identify the cusp boundaries, and the results are critical for understanding the generation mechanism of 15MLT-PCA.