Optical and SuperDARN radar observations of duskside shock aurora over Zhongshan Station

We present observations of a duskside shock aurora occurred on 21 April 2001 by the SuperDARN radar at Syowa Station and the all-sky camera at Zhongshan Station （ZHS） in Antarctica when the radar was operated in fast-scan mode covering the ZHS region. With the two independent data sets, we examine ionospheric plasma convection and aurora arising from a sudden impulse （SI） event associated with an interplanetary shock. During the transient shock compression, the aurora was quiescent without any optical emission at the preliminary impulse of the SI. About 7 min later, a new thin auroral arc with brighter emissions and a lifetime of -14 rain expanded westward from the region above ZHS during the main impulse of the SI. SuperDARN radar line-of-sight measurements showed periodical oscillation in the flow direction with ultra-low-frequency waves having a period of -8 min during the shock compression. We suggest that downward field-aligned current during the preliminary impulse stage of the SI was the main driver of the first plasma flow reversal, and the subsequent new discrete auroral arc may be associated with field-aligned acceleration in the region of the main impulse related upward field-aligned currents. The ground magnetometer observations suggest that the oscillation of the ionospheric convection on the duskside was associated with field line resonance activity.

An integrated analysis platform merging SuperDARN data within the THEMIS tool developed by ERG-Science Center (ERG-SC)

The Energization and Radiation in Geospace （ERG） mission seeks to explore the dynamics of the radiation belts in the Earth＇s inner magnetosphere with a space-borne probe （ERG satellite） in coordination with related ground observations and simulations/modeling studies. For this mission, the Science Center of the ERG project （ERG-SC） will provide a useful data analysis platform based on the THEMIS Data Analysis software Suite （TDAS）, which has been widely used by researchers in many conjunction studies of the Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms （THEMIS） spacecraft and ground data. To import SuperDARN data to this highly useful platform, ERG-SC, in close collaboration with SuperDARN groups, developed the Common Data Format （CDF） design suitable for fitacf data and has prepared an open database of SuperDARN data archived in CDE ERG-SC has also been developing programs written in Interactive Data Language （IDL） to load fltacf CDF files and to generate various kinds of plots-not only range-time-intensity-type plots but also two-dimensional map plots that can be superposed with other data, such as all-sky images of THEMIS-GBO and orbital footprints of various satellites. The CDF-TDAS scheme developed by ERG-SC will make it easier for researchers who are not familiar with SuperDARN data to access and analyze SuperDARN data and thereby facilitate collaborative studies with satellite data, such as the inner magnetosphere data pro- vided by the ERG （Japan）-RBSP （USA）-THEMIS （USA） fleet.