Ground based observation of proton aurora using All-Sky Camemra at polar regions

Abstract

The hydrogen emission is a unique feature of proton aurora in distinction from electron auroras. The emission profile viewed along the magnetic zenith from the ground is Doppler shifted with its peak blue shifted, resulting from excited energetic H atoms. Since traditional all-sky cameras (ASC) using-wide band filter do not provide the information of the Doppler shift, tilting filter type ASC for observation of proton aurora (PASC) has been developed in collaboration with Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. This PASC provides images of Hα emission at centered 656.3 nm, and the line profile can be identified using the effect of shifting the center of the wavelength by tilting the filter. The PASC was first installed at the Jang Bogo station, Antarctica in end of 2016, followed by second PASC at Kjell Henriksen Observatory, Norway, in 2017. Both sites contain polar cusp regions in the south and north, respectively, which offers opportunity to investigate the Doppler velocity and energy of cusp precipitating protons contributing to the Earth's atmosphere variability. In this presentation, we are going to introduce to a novel method of PASC, and some early results and their implications are reported.