Highlights in the studies of the relationship of geomagnetic field changes to auroral luminosity.

In the middle of the 18th century Celsius observed that there was a correspondence between a great aurora in Europe and the extreme motion of his observed compass needle. By the nineteenth century it was well established that the geomagnetic field always fluctuated violently at the height of an auroral display, that the high latitude zones of peak field disturbance and luminosity had similar locations, and that there were concurrent solar cycle changes in activity levels for the two phenomena. After the International Geophysical Year of 1957 to 1959 the correspondence of the ionospheric electrojet currents and auroral forms became a focus of observational programs. In these recent times the studies of a relationship between short-period pulsations of the geomagnetic field and luminosity pulsations (or the pulsations of bombarding, low energy electrons causing the auroral intensity changes) appeared prominently in the literature. A summary of the scientific progress in the study of these phenomena is presented in this paper.