Temperature Dependence of Plasmaspheric Ion Composition

J. Goldstein, D. Gallagher, P. D. Craven, R. H. Comfort, K. J. Genestreti, C. Mouikis, H. Spence, W. Kurth, J. Wygant, R. M. Skoug, B. A. Larsen, G. D. Reeves, S. De Pascuale

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

17 Scopus citations

Abstract

We analyze a database of Dynamics Explorer-1 (DE-1) Retarding Ion Mass Spectrometer densities and temperatures to yield the first explicit measure of how cold ion concentration depends on temperature. We find that cold H+ and He+ concentrations have very weak dependence on temperature, but cold O+ ion concentration increases steeply as these ions become warmer. We demonstrate how this result can aid in analyzing composition data from other satellites without spacecraft potential mitigation, by applying the result to an example using data from the Van Allen Probes mission. Measurement of light ion concentrations above 1 electron volt (eV) are a reasonable proxy for the concentrations of colder (eV) ions. Warmer O+ ion concentrations may be extrapolated to colder temperatures using our fit to the statistical distribution versus temperature.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)6585-6595
Number of pages11
JournalJournal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics
Volume124
Issue number8
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 1 2019

Funding

This study was supported by the Southwest Research Institute and by the NASA Van Allen Probes mission's RBSP-ECT project via JHU/APL Contract 967399 under NASA's Prime Contract NAS5-01072. The Van Allen Probes data used herein are from previously published work (Genestreti et al.,; Goldstein et al.,). The DE-1 RIMS database is available to the public at the site (https://plasmasphere.nasa.gov/rims/). Activity index data are from OMNI (available at http://cdaweb.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/). This research has made use of NASA's Astrophysics Data System. ; Goldstein et al., ). The DE‐1 RIMS database is available to the public at the site ( This study was supported by the Southwest Research Institute and by the NASA Van Allen Probes mission's RBSP‐ECT project via JHU/APL Contract 967399 under NASA's Prime Contract NAS5‐01072. The Van Allen Probes data used herein are from previously published work (Genestreti et al., https://plasmasphere.nasa.gov/rims/ ). Activity index data are from OMNI (available at http://cdaweb.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/ ). This research has made use of NASA's Astrophysics Data System.

Keywords

  • composition
  • ion
  • plasmasphere
  • temperature

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Temperature Dependence of Plasmaspheric Ion Composition'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this