EPSS Colloquium spring-2025

Pulsating aurora is created by particle scattering in the equatorial magnetosphere through cyclotron resonance with chorus waves and constitutes a significant amount of energy transfer from the magnetosphere to the ionosphere. This process depends on a complex combination of the pre-existing source and seed populations, particle injections, and cold plasma structuring in the inner magnetosphere. Pulsating aurora can include precipitation up to MeV energies and is directly related to particle injections. It is also fairly ubiquitous and can be long-lasting and widespread. Due to the high energy nature of the precipitation, it can deposit energy in the middle and lower atmosphere. Thus, pulsating aurora investigations offer us an insight into total energy flux into the atmosphere and magnetosphere-atmosphere coupling. This presentation summarizes recent work to quantify the energy content of pulsating aurora and estimate total energy deposition into the atmosphere as well as understand the impact on the atmosphere of this highly energetic type of aurora.