Dynamics of three dimensional ionospheric plasma clouds

The first self-consistent, three-dimensional analysis of plasma cloud evolution in the ionosphere is presented. It is demonstrated that there is a preferred perpendicular scale size associated with 3D plasma clouds given by ${\mathrm{r}}_{\mathrm{c}}$∼c(${\mathrm{T}}_{\mathrm{e}}$+${\mathrm{T}}_{\mathrm{i}}$)/${\mathrm{eB}}_{\mathrm{z}}$ ${\mathrm{V}}_{\mathrm{n}}$ ${\mathrm{\Gamma }}_{\mathrm{c}}$, where ${\mathrm{r}}_{\mathrm{c}}$ is the cloud radius, ${\mathrm{T}}_{\mathrm{\alpha }}$ is the temperature of the α species, ${\mathrm{B}}_{\mathrm{z}}$ is the ambient magnetic field, and ${\mathrm{V}}_{\mathrm{n}}$ is the neutral wind speed, and ${\mathrm{\Gamma }}_{\mathrm{c}}$<1/ √2 .