Auroral Bead Propagation: Explanation Based on the Conservation of Vorticity

Abstract The beading of auroral arcs often takes place at substorm onset. It is known that auroral beads propagate more often eastward than westward at several km/s, which is difficult to explain by existing models. We investigate this issue observationally and theoretically. First, based on previous research and additional statistical analysis, we suggest that (a) auroral beads often propagate eastward in the presence of westward background convection, and (b) background ionospheric convection may be better represented by large‐scale convection for westward propagation, and by meso‐scale convection for eastward propagation. Then we model auroral beads as vortices of ionospheric flow, and consider the longitudinal propagation of their meridional displacement based on the conservation of vorticity. Here it is crucial that the background zonal flow has vorticity (i.e., flow shear) changing with latitude. It is found that the wave propagates either parallel or anti‐parallel to the background flow depending on whether the background vorticity increases or decreases in latitude, and if its latitudinal scale is significantly smaller than the longitudinal wavelength, the phase velocity exceeds the background flow speed. The result suggests that the latitudinal structure of the background flow is crucial for the bead propagation. More specifically, the aforementioned feature (a) implies that the zonal flow associated with eastward propagation is confined in latitude, which may correspond to the preonset approach of mesoscale flows. In contrast, the large‐scale ionospheric flow suggested for westward propagation as described in (b) may correspond to the global convection of the conventional growth phase.