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Cited by 621

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 22 of the 22 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Linear theory and modeling of the Rayleigh‐Taylor instability leading to the occurrence of equatorial spread F

Sultan, P. J.·1996·Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics
DOI 10.1029/96ja00682
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Abstract

In a test of the generally accepted Rayleigh‐Taylor (R‐T) instability mechanism for equatorial spread F (ESF), a linear instability growth rate γRT is derived following the formalism of Haerendel (preprint, 1973) which takes into account the variations of physical parameters along geomagnetic flux tubes. The resulting form of γRT extends the results of previous work by including direct dependencies on transequatorial neutral winds, zonal electric fields, vertical and horizontal ionospheric density gradients, the presence of an E region, and chemical recombination. Realistic atmospheric and ionospheric density model inputs are used for the first time to make quantitative calculations of R‐T growth rates for a range of geophysical conditions. The key result of this study is that time/altitude domains having positive calculated instability growth rates are found to coincide with observed time/altitude patterns of ESF occurrence over both a monthly and a yearly time frame. This success in being able to model the climatological occurrence of ESF lends support to the physical model adopted for the instability mechanism and opens up new avenues of research into ESF predictability on a night‐to‐night and even an hour‐to‐hour basis.

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Metadata

Authors
Sultan, P. J.
Venue
Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics
Publisher
American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Published
1996-12
Volume
101
Issue
A12
Pages
26875-26891
ISSN
0148-0227 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1029/96ja00682
OpenAlex
W1991378411
Cited by
621
References
22
FWCI
3.63
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Linear theory and modeling of the Rayleigh‐Taylor instability leading to the occurrence of equatorial spread F. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1029/96ja00682
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Sultan, P. J. (1996). Linear theory and modeling of the Rayleigh‐Taylor instability leading to the occurrence of equatorial spread F. Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics. https://doi.org/10.1029/96ja00682

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Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.

Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.