Auroral Kilometric Radiation as a Diagnostic Tool for the Properties of the Magnetosphere

Abstract

Auroral kilometric radiation is used as a tool for the remote diagnostics of processes in the Earth’s magnetosphere. Using satellite data and the spectrum of fluctuations of auroral kilometric radiation at various frequencies, the fractal properties of the auroral region of the magnetosphere depending on the altitude of a source and the frequency of generated radiation are studied. The fractal characteristics (Hurst exponent and fractal dimension) of the medium in the region of generation of auroral kilometric radiation and their dynamics depending on the altitude and frequency are determined from the scaling law. It is shown that the scaling and Hurst exponent increase with the altitude (or with a decrease in the signal frequency), whereas the fractal dimension decreases with an increase in the altitude. The scaling and fractal parameters obtained in this work indicate that the processes under consideration exhibit long-range dependence.