Polar Cap Patch Dynamics

Under this grant University of Oslo UiO has covered the annual fee for AFRL s all-sky imager at the Kjell Henriksen Observatory in Longyearbyen. On request UiO we have provided AFRL optical data from our instrumentation at Ny- lesund, Longyearbyen and Andenes, North-Norway, and TEC and scintillation data from our NovAtel GSV 404B GPS receivers located at Oslo and Ny- lesund. The primary objective has been to obtain a better understanding solar wind impacts on the polar ionosphere which are of central importance to current space research and of relevance for space weather applications. The science problem complex is related to the formation of polar cap patches, transport of patches across the polar cap, and plasma instability mechanisms associated with polar cap patches. This project has contributed to 13 peer review publications with UiO co-authorship. The report is organized as follows. Section 2 provides key information about the UiO optical instrumentation. Sections 3, 4 and 5 specifies the time intervals our instrumentation was operated the winters of 20102011, 20112012 and 20122013, respectively. Section 6 summarizes the science production titles and abstracts for the 13 papers. Section 7 states that we have made no inventions, and Section 8 lists the core UiO personnel during this project.