Loading...
Please wait, while we are loading the content...
Similar Documents
Electric potential distributions at the interface between plasmasheet clouds
| Content Provider | NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) |
|---|---|
| Author | Roth, M. Evans, D. S. Lemaire, J. |
| Copyright Year | 1987 |
| Description | At the interface between two plasma clouds with different densities, temperatures, and/or bulk velocities, there are large charge separation electric fields which can be modeled in the framework of a collisionless theory for tangential discontinuities. Two different classes of layers were identified: the first one corresponds to (stable) ion layers which are thicker than one ion Lamor radius; the second one corresponds to (unstable) electron layers which are only a few electron Larmor radii thick. It is suggested that these thin electron layers with large electric potential gradients (up to 400 mV/m) are the regions where large-amplitude electrostatic waves are spontaneously generated. These waves scatter the pitch angles of the ambient plasmasheet electron into the atmospheric loss cone. The unstable electron layers can therefore be considered as the seat of strong pitch angle scattering for the primary auroral electrons. |
| File Size | 541264 |
| Page Count | 8 |
| File Format | |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://archive.org/details/NASA_NTRS_Archive_19870013897 |
| Archival Resource Key | ark:/13960/t3mw7b12c |
| Language | English |
| Publisher Date | 1987-05-01 |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Subject Keyword | Geophysics Plasma Layers Discontinuity Electric Potential Boundary Value Problems Collisionless Plasmas Particle Interactions Auroral Arcs Mathematical Models Wave Interaction Velocity Distribution Electric Fields Current Density Ntrs Nasa Technical Reports Server (ntrs) Nasa Technical Reports Server Aerodynamics Aircraft Aerospace Engineering Aerospace Aeronautic Space Science |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
