Growin: Modeling Ionospheric Instability Growth Rates During Solar
Minimum and Giving Away the Code
Abstract
Growin is a module that calculates the flux-tube-integrated linear
Rayleigh-Taylor instability (grow)th rate of (i)o(n)ospheric
irregularities is often used in the study of equatorial spread F(ESF).
The Rayleigh-Taylor instability is often the prevailing explanation for
the growth of plasma irregularities in the bottomside into plumes of
depleted plasma, therefore a computation of its growth rate is valuable.
This package includes many common approximations used in the computation
of the Rayleigh-Taylor growth rate. Although not the focus of this
discussion, Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilitiesfrom neutral wind shear below
the bottomside F region are another source of plasma instability in the
bottomside F region intended to be included in this package eventually.