Plasma Turbulence In The Equatorial Electrojet: A Two-Dimensional Hamiltonian Fluid Model

A nonlinear unified fluid model that describes the Equatorial Electrojet, including the Farley-Buneman and gradient-drift plasma instabilities, is defined and shown to be a noncanonical Hamiltonian system. Two geometric constants of motion for the model are obtained and shown to be Casimir invariants. A reformulation of the model shows the roles of the density-gradient scale-length (L-n) and the cross-field drift-velocity (upsilon(E)) in controlling the dynamics of unstable modes in the growing, transition, and saturation phases of a simulation. Published by AIP Publishing.