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Toshi under aurora. Photo by X. Xing and N. Ozak


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Name Yukioshi (Toshi) Nishimura
Affiliation Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles
Job title Assistant Researcher
Supervisor Professor Larry Lyons
E-mail
Office Math and Sciences 7115
Graduating high school Nagata High school, Kobe, Japan
Graduating university Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan (adv. Prof. Takayuki Ono)
Past postdoc job Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan (adv. Prof. Takashi Kikuchi)
UCLA (adv. Prof. Lyons)
Hometown Kobe, Japan
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Research Topics
  • Auroral substorms using all-sky imagers
       Substorm is the most dynamic and specutacular phenomenon in auroral phenomena. While the phenonenology has been well documented, the time sequence leading to substorm onset has been a long-standing debate for more than 40 years in the space physics community. We found precursor of auroral substorms using the THEMIS all-sky imager network. The pre-onset sequence starts from the poleward boundary of the auroral oval leading to faint auroral streamers toward the equatorward boundary, suggesting enhanced earthward plasma flows in the magnetosphere. This result was selected as a NASA press release






  • Driver of pulsating aurora
       Pulsating auroras are beautiful emissions that blink in the atmosphere with a periodicity of 5 to 40 seconds. Earlier work in October, based on observations both from NASA's THEMIS spacecraft and from the ground, we solved the mystery of how the pulsating auroras were formed -- these spectacular light shows were driven by chorus waves observed deep in space. The lessons we are learning from this novel experimental technique is links aurora in the ionosphere to a location which is separated by over 40,000 km in the magnetosphere. This work was published in Science and covered by News media





  • Plasma convection in the magnetosphere-ionosphere coupled system
       Plasma convection is fundamental in energy transport in the ionosphere and magnetosphere. We are studying convection electric fields in space using spacecraft and radars to understand how electromagnetic energy is transported in the coupled system.

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    Background
    1997/04-2000/03
          Nagata Highschool, Hyogo, Japan
    2000/04-2004/03
          Department of Astronomy and Geophisics, Faculty of Science, Tohoku University, Japan
    2004/04-2006/03
          Department of Geophysics, Graduate School of Science, Tohoku University (Master course)
    2006/04-2009/03
          Department of Geophysics, Graduate School of Science, Tohoku University (PhD course)
    2006/04-2009/03
          JSPS research fellow (DC1), Tohoku University
    2008/04-2009/03
          Research Student, STEL, Nagoya University
    2008/06-08
          Research Scholar, University of Minnesota
    2009/04-2011/09
          JSPS research fellow (SPD), STEL, Nagoya University
    2009/06-2010/04
          Visiting Scholar, University of California, Los Angeles
    2010/04-present
          Assistant Researcher, University of California, Los Angeles


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