Non-gyrotropic proton and alpha-particle velocity distributions in the solar wind: TAUS observations and stability analysis

Physics

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Alpha Particles, Ion Distribution, Solar Protons, Solar Wind, Velocity Distribution, Gyrotropism, Mars Probes, Cyclotron Frequency, Wave Dispersion, Polarization (Waves), Interplanetary Magnetic Fields, Wave-Particle Interactions

Scientific paper

Ion velocity distribution functions have been measured with high time resolution by the TAUS plasma instrument on the PHOBOS mission to Mars in 1989. The unambiguous separation of protons and alpha-particles by TAUS enabled us to study the nonthermal features of their distributions separately and to analyze the stability of the distributions against excitation of waves in the cyclotron-frequency domain. Typical nonthermal features include temperature anisotropies, with Tperpendicular larger than Tparallel, and ion beam populations drifting along the local magnetic field direction. Also, distinctly non-gyrotropic alpha-particle velocity distributions were sometimes found. Non-gyrotropy strongly changes the wave dispersion and gives rise to new growing modes, related to the coupling of the standard wave modes existing in gyrotropic plasma. It is found that for the measured non-gyrotropic ion distributions the right-hand polarized wave can also be excited by a temperature anistropy instead of the usual beam drift.

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