PARTICLE TRAJECTORIES IN A MODEL CURRENT SHEET, BASED ON THE OPEN MODEL OF THE MAGNETOSPHERE, WITH APPLICATIONS TO AURORAL PARTICLES.

Abstract

The work is a study of charged particle trajectories about a current sheet which is based on Dungey's 'open model of the magnetosphere'. The object of the study is to see if charged particles incident on this current sheet, coming from the solar wind, and emerging as possible auroral particles, emerge in any kind of complex spatial distributions resembling auroral forms. Adiabatic theory, which is good throughout most of the magnetosphere, breaks down near a neutral point in the current sheet, and particle trajectories must, therefore, be computed. The computation is done using an IBM-7074 computer. Only proton trajectories are studied extensively, and the results yield accelerated output protons with high intensity in a thin sheet, with perhaps some thin beam structure within the sheet. (Author)

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Oct 10, 1964
Accession Number
AD0607268

Entities

People

  • T. W. Speiser

Organizations

  • Pennsylvania State University

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Charged Particles
  • Computations
  • Computers
  • Intensity
  • Magnetosphere
  • Particle Trajectories
  • Particles
  • Solar Wind
  • Spatial Distribution
  • Trajectories

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Computational Modeling and Simulation
  • Plasma Physics / Magnetohydrodynamics
  • Space/Atmospheric Physics.