Dynamo equation solution using Finite Volume Method for midlatitude ionosphere

Abstract

Ionosphere is the layer of atmosphere which plays an important role both in space based navigation, positioning and communication systems and HF signals. The structure of the electron density is a function of spatio-temporal variables. The electrodynamic medium is also influenced with earth's magnetic field, atmospheric chemistry and plasma flow and diffusion under earth's gravitation. Thus, the unified dynamo equation for the ionosphere is a second order partial differential equation for quasi-static electric potential with variable spatial coefficients. In this study, the inhomogeneous and anisotropic nature of ionosphere that can be formulated as a divergence equation is solved numerically using Finite Volume Method for the first time. The ionosphere and the operators are discretized for the midlatitude region and the solution domain is investigated for Dirichlet type boundary conditions that are built in into the diffusion equation. The analysis indicates that FVM can be a powerful tool in obtaining parametric electrostatic potential distribution in ionosphere.