The Use of Iron Charge State Variations as a Tracer for Solar Wind Entry and Energization Within the Magnetosphere

Details The Use of Iron Charge State Variations as a Tracer for Solar Wind Entry and Energization Within the Magnetosphere The Use of Iron Charge State Variations as a Tracer for Solar Wind Entry and Energization Within the Magnetosphere

May 2001

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001agusm..sm42d07f&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Spring Meeting 2001, abstract #SM42D-07

Physics

2164 Solar Wind Plasma, 2724 Magnetopause, Cusp, And Boundary Layers, 2731 Magnetosphere--Outer, 2784 Solar Wind/Magnetosphere Interactions

Scientific paper

The variation of the charge state of iron ions in the solar wind is used to trace volume elements of plasma from the solar wind into the magnetosphere and to determine the time scales associated with the entry into and the action of possible magnetospheric energization process working on these plasmas. On May 2-3, 1998 the ACE spacecraft located at the L1 libration point observed a series of changes to the average charge state of the element Fe in the solar wind plasma reflecting variation in the coronal temperature of their original source. Over the period of these two days the average Fe charge state was observed to vary from +16 to +6 both at ACE and at the Polar satellite in the high latitude dayside magnetosphere. During a period of southward IMF the observations at Polar inside the magnetosphere of the same Fe charge state were simultaneous with those at ACE delayed by the measured convection speed of the solar wind to the subsolar magnetopause. Comparing the phase space density as a function of energy at both ACE and Polar indicated that significant energization of the plasma occurred on time scales of minutes or less. Polar observations of very energetic O+ ions at the same time indicate that the energization process is probably occurring in the high latitude cusp region inside the magnetosphere.

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