On the initial perturbation of mesospheric dust associated irregularities by high powered radio waves

Important observational manifestations of subvisible mesospheric dust are Polar Mesospheric Summer Echoes (PMSEs) which are produced by scattering from electron irregularities produced by dust charging. It has been observed that the PMSE strength can be artificially modified by using a ground-based ionospheric heating facility to perturb the electron irregularity source region that is believed to produce PMSE. Recently it has become evident that significant diagnostic information may be available about the dust layer from the temporal behavior of the electron irregularities during the heating process which modifies the background electron temperature. Particularly interesting and important periods of the temporal behavior are during the turn-on and turn-off of the radio wave heating. Most past theoretical models and experimental investigations have concentrated primarily on the later period. The objective here is to consider the temporal behavior and possibilities for diagnostic information available during the turn-on period of the radio wave. First, approximate analytical models are developed and compared to a more accurate full computational model as a reference. Then from the temporal behavior of the electron irregularities during the turn-on of the radio wave, the analytical models are used to obtain possible diagnostic information for various charged dust and background plasma quantities.     

Auroral Plasma Acceleration Above Martian Magnetic Anomalies

Aurora is caused by the precipitation of energetic particles into a planetary atmosphere, the light intensity being roughly proportional to the precipitating particle energy flux. From auroral research in the terrestrial magnetosphere it is known that bright auroral displays, discrete aurora, result from an enhanced energy deposition caused by downward accelerated electrons. The process is commonly referred to as the auroral acceleration process. Discrete aurora is the visual manifestation of the structuring inherent in a highly magnetized plasma. A strong magnetic field limits the transverse (to the magnetic field) mobility of charged particles, effectively guiding the particle energy flux along magnetic field lines. The typical, slanted arc structure of the Earth’s discrete aurora not only visualizes the inclination of the Earth’s magnetic field, but also illustrates the confinement of the auroral acceleration process. The terrestrial magnetic field guides and confines the acceleration processes such that the preferred acceleration of particles is frequently along the magnetic field lines. Field-aligned plasma acceleration is therefore also the signature of strongly magnetized plasma. This paper discusses plasma acceleration characteristics in the night-side cavity of Mars. The acceleration is typical for strongly magnetized plasmas – field-aligned acceleration of ions and electrons. The observations map to regions at Mars of what appears to be sufficient magnetization to support magnetic field-aligned plasma acceleration – the localized crustal magnetizations at Mars (Acuña et al., 1999). Our findings are based on data from the ASPERA-3 experiment on ESA’s Mars Express, covering 57 orbits traversing the night-side/eclipse of Mars. There are indeed strong similarities between Mars and the Earth regarding the accelerated electron and ion distributions. Specifically acceleration above Mars near local midnight and acceleration above discrete aurora at the Earth – characterized by nearly monoenergetic downgoing electrons in conjunction with nearly monoenergetic upgoing ions. We describe a number of characteristic features in the accelerated plasma: The “inverted V” energy-time distribution, beam vs temperature distribution, altitude distribution, local time distribution and connection with magnetic anomalies. We also compute the electron energy flux and find that the energy flux is sufficient to cause weak to medium strong (up to several tens of kR 557.7 nm emissions) aurora at Mars. Monoenergetic counterstreaming accelerated ions and electrons is the signature of field-aligned electric currents and electric field acceleration. The topic is reasonably well understood in terrestrial magnetospheric physics, although some controversy still remains on details and the cause-effect relationships. We present a potential cause-effect relationship leading to auroral plasma acceleration in the nightside cavity of Mars – the downward acceleration of electrons supposedly manifesting itself as discrete aurora above Mars.     

Density of discontinuities in the heliosphere

The spatial distribution of MHD discontinuities in the solar wind has been studied, based on the long time observations by the magnetometer onboard Ulysses. We emphasize the critical importance of the method whereby events are selected; some previous work is critically reviewed in this respect. Our analysis supports earlier observations that the density of discontinuities decreases with increasing distance from the Sun. It is suggested, however, that the distribution of the discontinuity normals should be revised, retaining only those discontinuities for further study that have reliable normals. This study shows that the vast majority of well defined discontinuities has a small magnetic field component parallel to the discontinuity normal. Given the large number of discontinuities in the Ulysses data set there is a statistically sufficient number for further study. It is also shown in this paper that for the subset of well defined discontinuities the determination of the normal vector using Minimum Variance Analysis and the cross-product technique are equally valid.     

Plasma instabilities and their simulations in the equatorial F region – Recent results

In this paper the developments made in the last five years on numerical simulation/modeling studies of a complex nighttime equatorial spread F phenomenon are reviewed. Emphasis is given to the Indian work and necessary comparisons are done with other international works on this field. Investigations involving the important aspects, namely the confinement of the plasma bubble in the bottomside of the ionosphere, linear and nonlinear effects of molecular ions in the development of plasma bubbles, interaction of two modes as a seed perturbation are discussed in detail. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

彗星中尘埃的带电特性和平衡电势的研究

分析了彗星中尘埃粒子的带电特性，以及计算了彗星尘埃等离子体的典型参数．对Halley彗星和G-Z彗星进行了讨论，得出了彗星中尘埃平衡电势的一些主要规律．一般来说，这些规律也可以适用于其他等离子体彗星．     

Gamma rays from accreting matter onto collapsed objects

In the spherical accretion onto massive objects, the matter may be heated up to temperatures as high as 10¹² °K. In such a hot plasma, the thermal bremsstrahlung (e-e and e-p) and π° decay from inelastic collisions of protons are the main γ-ray sources. We determined the γ -ray production spectra from the π° decay and from bremsstrahlung for different temperatures. The expected γ-ray spectra were evaluated too in order to fit experimental data. We have fitted COS B data from 3C 273 using a two temperatures plasma model. The best fit is for

Full-size image (1K)

(M₈ is the black hole mass in 10⁸ M) which gives . The hard X-ray measurements do not contradict the bremsstrahlung spectrum.     

钡钨空心阴极等离子体放电模式实验研究

主要通过实验的手段,系统研究了钡钨空心阴极的等离子体放电特性及其工作模式。实验中,使空心阴极工作在三极管构型下,调节相应的放电参数,详细分析钡钨空心阴极放电特性的变化规律、存在的放电模式及其转化规律。最后得到结论：钡钨空心阴极放电表现为羽毛状、亮斑状和弥漫状等3种典型的工作模式;不同放电模式可以用放电电流、放电电压及其振荡特性进行判定和区分;随着放电参数的变化,几种放电模式之间可以相互转化。     

导弹垂直发射系统排烟道燃气流的等离子体测温法研究

导弹垂直发射系统排烟道出口燃气流直接接触飞出发射箱的导弹。所以排烟道进出口温度分布，对系统设计十分重要。本文采用等离子体测温法，测得了温度分布。发现由于导弹发射位置的变化，排烟道内温度分布是很不均匀的。     

微波等离子推力器真空羽流模拟计算

粒子节点－直接模拟蒙特卡罗法（DSMC）是求解稀薄气体流动的数值模拟方法，采用轴对称硬球模型、随机取样频率法对微波等离子推力器（MPT）的真空羽流进行了数值模拟计算，为了提高计算效率和节省计算机内存，采用了随机取样频率法（RSF）和加权技术。对MPT真空羽流的浓度、速度和温度分布进行了计算，并对羽流污染进行了分析。计算结果对以后MPT真空羽流场测试和航天器一体化设计提供了参考。     

用于微小卫星推进装置的脉冲等离子体推力器

论述了脉冲等离子体推力器(PPT)的工作原理和研究状况。在分析其主要优缺点的基础上，讨论了PPT技术的发展方向，并就PPT的应用前景作了展望。分析认为PPT是一种先进的小推力动力装置，特别适合于微小卫星的轨道转移、姿态控制、位置保持以及星座编队飞行。