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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Magnetic Field Amplification In Electron Phase-Space Holes And Related Effects, R. A. Treumann, W. Baumjohann Apr 2012

Magnetic Field Amplification In Electron Phase-Space Holes And Related Effects, R. A. Treumann, W. Baumjohann

Dartmouth Scholarship

No abstract provided.


A Note On The Weibel Instability And Thermal Fluctuations, R. A. Treumann, W. Baumjohann Feb 2012

A Note On The Weibel Instability And Thermal Fluctuations, R. A. Treumann, W. Baumjohann

Dartmouth Scholarship

The thermal fluctuation level of the Weibel in- stability is recalculated. It is shown that the divergence of the fluctuations at long wavelengths, i.e. the Weibel infrared catastrophe, never occurs. At large wavelengths the thermal fluctuation level is terminated by the presence of even the smallest available stable thermal anisotropy. Weibel fields penetrate only one skin depth into the plasma. When excited inside, they cause layers of antiparallel fields of skin depth width and vortices which may be subject to reconnection.


Field Line Distribution Of Density At L=4.8 Inferred From Observations By Cluster, R E. Denton, P Décréau, M J. Engebretson, F Darrouzet Feb 2009

Field Line Distribution Of Density At L=4.8 Inferred From Observations By Cluster, R E. Denton, P Décréau, M J. Engebretson, F Darrouzet

Dartmouth Scholarship

For two events observed by the CLUSTER space- craft, the field line distribution of mass density ρ was inferred from Alfve ́n wave harmonic frequencies and compared to the electron density ne from plasma wave data and the oxy- gen density nO+ from the ion composition experiment. In one case, the average ion mass M≡ρ/ne was about 5amu (28 October 2002), while in the other it was about 3 amu (10 September 2002). Both events occurred when the CLUSTER 1 (C1) spacecraft was in the plasmatrough. Nevertheless, the electron density ne was significantly lower for the first event (ne =8 …


Statistics Of Auroral Langmuir Waves, M. Samara, J. Labelle, I. H. Cairns Dec 2008

Statistics Of Auroral Langmuir Waves, M. Samara, J. Labelle, I. H. Cairns

Dartmouth Scholarship

The Physics of Auroral Zone Electrons II (PHAZE II) sounding rocket was launched in February 1997 into active pre-midnight aurora. The resulting high frequency wave data are dominated by Langmuir waves. Consistent with many previous observations the Langmuir waves are sporadic, occurring in bursts lasting up to a few hundred ms. We compute statistics of the electric field amplitudes of these Langmuir waves, with two results. First, the shape of the distribution of running averages of the electric field amplitudes remains approximately stationary for a large range of widths of running average less than ~0.3 ms and for a large …


Pfisr Nightside Observations Of Naturally Enhanced Ion Acoustic Lines, And Their Relation To Boundary Auroral Features, R. G. Michell, K. A. Lynch, C. J. Heinselman, H. C. Stenbaek-Nielsen Nov 2008

Pfisr Nightside Observations Of Naturally Enhanced Ion Acoustic Lines, And Their Relation To Boundary Auroral Features, R. G. Michell, K. A. Lynch, C. J. Heinselman, H. C. Stenbaek-Nielsen

Dartmouth Scholarship

We present results from a coordinated camera and radar study of the auroral ionosphere conducted during March of 2006 from Poker Flat, Alaska. The campaign was conducted to coincide with engineering tests of the first quarter installation of the Poker Flat Incoherent Scatter Radar (PFISR). On 31 March 2006, a moderately intense auroral arc, (~10 kR at 557.7 nm), was located in the local magnetic zenith at Poker Flat. During this event the radar observed 7 distinct periods of abnormally large backscattered power from the F-region. These were only observed in the field-aligned radar beam, and radar spectra from these …


Structured Waves Near The Plasma Frequency Observed In Three Auroral Rocket Flights, M Samara, J Labelle Nov 2006

Structured Waves Near The Plasma Frequency Observed In Three Auroral Rocket Flights, M Samara, J Labelle

Dartmouth Scholarship

Abstract. We present observations of waves at and just above the plasma frequency (fpe) from three high frequency electric field experiments on three recent rockets launched to altitudes of 300–900 km in active aurora. The predominant observed HF waves just above fpe are narrowband, short- lived emissions with amplitudes ranging from <1mV/m to 20 mV/m, often associated with structured electron den- sity. The nature of these HF waves, as determined from frequency-time spectrograms, is highly variable: in some cases, the frequency decreases monotonically with time as in the “HF-chirps” previously reported (McAdams and La- Belle, 1999), but in other cases rising frequencies are ob- served, or features which alternately rise and fall in fre- quency. They exhibit two timescales of amplitude variation: a short timescale, typically 50–100 ms, associated with in- dividual discrete features, and a longer timescale associated with the general decrease in the amplitudes of the emissions as the rocket moves away from where the condition f ∼fpe holds. The latter timescale ranges from 0.6 to 6.0 s, corre- sponding to distances of 2–7 km, assuming the phenomenon to be stationary and using the rocket velocity to convert time to distance.


High-Latitude Propagation Studies Using A Meridional Chain Of Lf/Mf/Hf Receivers, J Labelle Apr 2004

High-Latitude Propagation Studies Using A Meridional Chain Of Lf/Mf/Hf Receivers, J Labelle

Dartmouth Scholarship

For over a decade, Dartmouth College has oper- ated programmable radio receivers at multiple high-latitude sites covering the frequency range 100–5000 kHz with about a 1-s resolution. Besides detecting radio emissions of auro- ral origin, these receivers record characteristics of the iono- spheric propagation of natural and man-made signals, docu- menting well-known effects, such as the diurnal variation in the propagation characteristics of short and long waves, and also revealing more subtle effects. For example, at auroral zone sites in equinoctial conditions, the amplitudes of dis- tant transmissions on MF/HF frequencies are often enhanced by a few dB just before …


A Study Of Pc-5 Ulf Oscillations, M K. Hudson, R E. Denton, M R. Lessard, E G. Miftakhova, R R. Anderson Jan 2004

A Study Of Pc-5 Ulf Oscillations, M K. Hudson, R E. Denton, M R. Lessard, E G. Miftakhova, R R. Anderson

Dartmouth Scholarship

A study of Pc-5 magnetic pulsations using data from the Combined Release and Radiation Effects Satellite (CRRES) was carried out. Three-component dynamic mag- netic field spectrograms have been used to survey ULF pul- sation activity for the approximate fourteen month lifetime of CRRES. Two-hour panels of dynamic spectra were exam- ined to find events which fall into two basic categories: 1) toroidal modes (fundamental and harmonic resonances) and 2) poloidal modes, which include compressional oscillations. The occurence rates were determined as a function of L value and local time. The main result is a comparable probabil- ity of occurence of …