{
  "abstract": "Three-metre Farley-Buneman irregularities observed by the \\textsc{icebear} VHF radar organize into clusters whose apparent motion follows the electric field mapped from the magnetosphere. We track these clusters automatically: each is bounded by an $α$-shape at every time step, consecutive frames are associated by an optimal assignment combining shape overlap with a predicted displacement. Births, deaths, splits, and mergers are monitored, and each trajectory is reduced to per-segment velocities by piecewise linear regression. Tracked speeds are validated against in-situ ion drifts measured by DMSP F16 during two conjunctions in May 2021. Across four years of disturbed conditions, the speed distribution of 74,517 tracked clusters agrees with Swarm A cross-track ion drifts to within a factor of two in probability density for all speeds between 300 and 4000 m/s, and the radar-tracked speed distribution continues as a power law well beyond the noise limit imposed on Swarm by spacecraft attitude jitter. Binning by geomagnetic activity yields a parameterization of the field dispersion conditional on threshold exceedance, $σ^2 = 3.68 \\times 10^5$ (SME/100 nT)$^{0.353}$~m$^2$ s$^{-2}$, equivalent to 30 to 60 mV/m across the observed activity range, which supplies the amplitude statistics entering the variance term of height-integrated Joule dissipation. During the 10 May 2024 super-storm, on closed field lines equatorward of the dayside cusp, we retrieved an upper-tail sample of this distribution, finding a cluster moving at $11,240\\pm660$ m/s and implying a field of approximately 560 mV/m. Together with the unstable fraction of a space weather model's grid volume, our parameterization can in future close the sub-grid contribution to the storm-time heating budget in the auroral ionosphere.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": "2605.31046",
  "author_total": 10,
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "Magnus F Ivarsen"
    },
    {
      "name": "Jean-Pierre St-Maurice"
    },
    {
      "name": "Devin R Huyghebaert"
    },
    {
      "name": "Yukinaga Miyashita"
    },
    {
      "name": "Saif Marei"
    },
    {
      "name": "Jordan Cho"
    },
    {
      "name": "Mahith Madhanakumar"
    },
    {
      "name": "Megan Gillies"
    },
    {
      "name": "Dan Billett"
    },
    {
      "name": "Glenn C Hussey"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/fegeq55s1z7kj.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.48550/arxiv.2605.31046",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "fegeq55s1z7kj",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.31046",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC-BY-NC-SA-4.0",
  "licence_label": "CC BY-NC-SA 4.0",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": "CC0-1.0",
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "arxiv",
      "astro-ph.EP"
    ],
    [
      "arxiv",
      "astro-ph.IM"
    ],
    [
      "arxiv",
      "physics.plasm-ph"
    ],
    [
      "arxiv",
      "physics.space-ph"
    ],
    [
      "openalex",
      "3103|Ionosphere and magnetosphere dynamics"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7163049231",
  "pdf_url": "https://arxiv.org/pdf/2605.31046",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-09-11",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/fegeq55s1z7kj.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:21:07Z",
      "native_id": "2605.31046",
      "source": "arxiv",
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.31046"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "astronomy",
      "origin": "arxiv:astro-ph.IM",
      "subfield": "instrumentation-methods"
    },
    {
      "field": "astronomy",
      "origin": "arxiv:astro-ph.EP",
      "subfield": "planetary"
    },
    {
      "field": "astronomy",
      "origin": "arxiv:physics.space-ph",
      "subfield": "stellar"
    },
    {
      "field": "physics",
      "origin": "arxiv:physics.plasm-ph",
      "subfield": "plasma"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Extreme, transient bursts of energy in the auroral ionosphere. I. Predictive radar tracking",
  "title_text": "Extreme, transient bursts of energy in the auroral ionosphere. I. Predictive radar tracking",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-30T12:21:07Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/fegeq55s1z7kj",
  "venue": "arXiv",
  "versions": []
}