Fine-scale electric fields from the aurora

The Earth's aurora, or northern lights, is a spectacular natural phenomenon. Furthermore, the aurora is rich in structure (e.g. auroral arcs, curls, folds and 'ruffs'), which indicate the presence of ionospheric electrodynamics which are structured on a very fine scale. The University of Southampton operates a unique auroral multi-spectral imaging system called 'ASK' (Auroral Structure and Kinetics), which was designed to observe auroral structure on spatial scales of metres, and with subsecond temporal resolution. One capability of this instrument is that, by imaging a 'metastable' emission (with a lifetime of ~5s) and subtracting prompt emissions, the flow of the plasma can be tracked on the above spatial and temporal scales. This project will exploit and develop this capability to investigate the electrodynamics of fine-scale auroral structure.