Correlator measurements of megahertz wave-particle interactions during electron beam operations on STS 46

Details Correlator measurements of megahertz wave-particle interactions during electron beam operations on STS 46 Correlator measurements of megahertz wave-particle interactions during electron beam operations on STS 46

Nov 1995

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1995jgr...10021561g&link_type=abstract

Journal of Geophysical Research, Volume 100, Issue A11, p. 21561-21576

Physics

Plasma Physics

12

Space Plasma Physics: Active Perturbation Experiments, Space Plasma Physics: Charged Particle Motion And Acceleration, Space Plasma Physics: Wave/Particle Interactions, Space Plasma Physics: Instruments And Techniques

Scientific paper

We report on the analysis of megahertz modulation of electrons as measured by the Shuttle Potential and Return Electron Experiment (SPREE) during dc firing of the shuttle electrodynamic tether system (SETS) fast pulsed electron generator (FPEG). The SPREE and FPEG were flown aboard the space shuttle Atlantis flight STS 46 as part of the Tethered Satellite System (TSS 1) mission. The principal data reported here are from the SPREE multiangular electrostatic analyzers (ESAs) and Space Particle Correlator Experiment (SPACE). The ESAs, mounted on rotary tables, measured electrons and ions in the energy range from 10 eV to 10 keV over a solid angle of 2π sr. The SPACE is a signal processing system that analyzes the pulse stream from the SPREE ESAs to identify bunching of the electrons and ions produced by coherent wave-particle interactions (WPIs). The SPACE detects modulations in the electron fluxes in frequency range 0- to 10-MHz. This paper concerns 2- to 4-MHz modulations of the electron flux detected by the SPACE when the FPEG was firing in a dc mode at pitch angles close to 90°. During such operations, FPEG emitted a current of 100 mA at an energy of 1 keV. For these times, electrons with energies from 10 to 1850 eV were measured by the SPREE. For energies between ~10 and 100 eV the electron flux is basically isotropic. At higher energies the flux increases for pitch angles near 90°.
The electron distribution functions generally decrease monotonically with increasing energy up to 100 eV. At energies >100 eV the distributions either monotonically decrease or exhibit a peak or plateau at energies near the beam emission energy. Megahertz modulations were observed for electrons with energies from 10 to 1180 eV, on both positive and negative slopes in the distribution function and throughout the 2π sr sampled by the ESAs. The occurrence and strength of the modulations exhibit no clear dependence on the pitch angle at which the electrons are measured. However, they appear to be limited to low parallel velocities (<3×106 m s-1) where beam-generated waves are in resonance with suprathermal electrons.

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