Study of computational stability of the high-latitude ionosphere model

Abstract

The high latitude ionospheric plasma is a difficult medium to describe due to the dependence of  its  parameters  on  heliogeophysical  conditions.  Its  large-scale  structure  is  influenced  by  processes  such  as  magnetospheric  convection,  plasmaspheric  flows  of  particles  and  heat,  as  well  as  the  precipitation of energetic particles in the region of the auroral oval. These processes are non-stationary and  their  characteristics  change  significantly  during  periods  of  enhanced  geomagnetic  activity.  Therefore, the modelling of the high-latitude ionosphere is associated with the development of a model that has a computationally stable numerical solution at a sufficiently high spatio-temporal resolution. For this purpose, in this work, we have carried out a study of the computational stability of the mathematical  model of the high-latitude ionosphere (Eulerian approach) when different integration steps in time and  space are specified. It is shown that the ionospheric model retains computational stability at all selected steps,  and  the  results  of  numerical  calculations  are  qualitatively  consistence  and  describe  the  main  large-scale  structural  formations  of  the  high-latitude  ionosphere.  The  results  show  that  the  developed  model  can  be  used  in  the  study  of  non-stationary  processes  occurring  in  the  ionospheric  plasma,  as well as in the study of the ionosphere during magnetic storms and substorms.