Cold ionospheric ions in the magnetosphere

Abstract

Cold (eV) ions of ionospheric origin are a major source of magnetospheric plasma. These ions dominate the number density for most of the volume of the magnetosphere, most of the time. This affects large-scale physics, including plasma temperature and pressure (and thus instability thresholds) and the Alfvén velocity (and thus energy transport with waves and the magnetic reconnection rate). This also affects small-scale kinetic plasma physics, including wave generation and the Hall physics of reconnection. Ions escaping from the ionosphere also represent a significant fraction of the mass outflow from planet Earth.

References in corpus (1)

• Cold ionospheric ions in the magnetosphere

Cited by in corpus (2)

• The spacecraft wake: Interference with electric field observations and a possibility to detect cold ions
• Cold ionospheric ions in the magnetosphere