Investigating energetic ion precipitation effects on ionosphere associated with FLC and EMIC waves

Both field line curvature (FLC) scattering and EMIC waves are believed to be associated with energetic ion precipitation, which is another important energy source to the ionosphere, in addition to the electron precipitation. But the relative contributions of these two mechanisms on the ionospheric ion precipitation and subsequent effects are still unclear. In this study, by using a global kinetic ring current model that self-consistently treats the electric/magnetic fields with the ring current dynamics, we investigate their impact on the ionosphere from two aspects: the global distribution of ion precipitation and resulting ionospheric conductance. Our preliminary results show that the intensity and coverage of low-energy ion precipitation due to EMIC waves are larger than that due to the FLC scattering, while the latter mostly contributes to the ion precipitation at higher energies (E>30 keV) and confined at outer region (L>5). We will further examine the subsequent effects on the ionospheric electrodynamics by estimating the conductance with empirical models using simulated ion precipitation energy flux, and compare to that caused by electron precipitation.