Compressive and Rarefactive Electron-Acoustic Solitons and Double Layers in Space Plasmas

Space observations in several near-Earth environments have revealed the presence of positive-potential, large-amplitude electrostatic structures, associated with high-frequency disturbances, and indicative of electron dynamics. Earlier models proposed in terms of electron-acoustic solitary waves in a two-electron-temperature plasma were inadequate, because only negative potential structures could thus be obtained, whereas the observations point to positive potential structures. In this paper, it is shown that the theoretical restriction to negative potential solitons is due to the neglect of the inertia of the hot electrons, implicitly or explicitly assumed in previous papers. If hot electron inertia is retained, however, there exists a parameter range where positive potential solitary waves are formed, which can have important consequences for the re-interpretation of several astrophysical phenomena involving two-electron-temperature plasmas. PACS: 52.35.Mw, 52.35.Sb, 96.50.Ry     

Estimation of the bias of the Minimum Variance technique in the determination of magnetic clouds global quantities and orientation

Magnetic clouds (MCs) are highly magnetized plasma structures that have a low proton temperature and a magnetic field vector that rotates when seen by a heliospheric observer. More than 25 years of observations of magnetic and plasma properties of MCs at 1 AU have provided significant knowledge of their magnetic structure. However, because in situ observations only give information along the trajectory of the spacecraft, their real 3D magnetic configuration remains still partially unknown. We generate a set of synthetic clouds, exploring the space of parameters that represents the possible orientations and minimum distances of the satellite trajectory to the cloud axis, p. The synthetic clouds have a local cylindrical symmetry and a linear force-free magnetic configuration. From the analysis of synthetic clouds, we quantify the errors introduced in the determination of the orientation/size (and, consequently, of the global magnetohydrodynamic quantities) by the Minimum Variance method when p is not zero.     

Interaction of magnetoacoustic solitons in electron-positron plasmas

The interaction between two, four and six magnetoacoustic solitons in electron-positron plasmas are investigated. The extended Poincaré–Lighthill–Kuo (PLK) perturbation method is employed to derived two KdV equations for magnetoacoustic solitons moving towards each other and studied the head-on collision between them and their phase shifts. The Hirota bilinear method is used to have multi-soliton solutions of already derived two KdV equations for right and left moving solitons. The four and six magnetoacoustic solitons solutions of the two KdV equations are obtained to discuss their interaction and phase shifts. It is found that only compressive magnetoacoustic solitons structures are formed in electron-positron plasma. The present study may be useful to understand the collective phenomena related to head-on and overtaking magnetoacoustic solitons interaction in electron-positron plasmas that may occur in a pulsar magnetosphere.     

Automatic detection of typical dust devils from Mars landscape images

This paper presents an improved algorithm for automatic detection of Martian dust devils that successfully extracts tiny bright dust devils and obscured large dust devils from two subtracted landscape images. These dust devils are frequently observed using visible cameras onboard landers or rovers. Nevertheless, previous research on automated detection of dust devils has not focused on these common types of dust devils, but on dust devils that appear on images to be irregularly bright and large. In this study, we detect these common dust devils automatically using two kinds of parameter sets for thresholding when binarizing subtracted images. We automatically extract dust devils from 266 images taken by the Spirit rover to evaluate our algorithm. Taking dust devils detected by visual inspection to be ground truth, the precision, recall and F-measure values are 0.77, 0.86, and 0.81, respectively.     

The feasibility of using an L1 positioned dust cloud as a method of space-based geoengineering

In this paper a method of geoengineering is proposed involving clouds of dust placed in the vicinity of the L₁ point as an alternative to the use of thin film reflectors. The aim of this scheme is to reduce the manufacturing requirement for space-based geoengineering. It has been concluded that the mass requirement for a cloud placed at the classical L₁ point, to create an average solar insolation reduction of 1.7%, is 7.60 × 10¹⁰ kg yr⁻¹ whilst a cloud placed at a displaced equilibrium point created by the inclusion of the effect of solar radiation pressure is 1.87 × 10¹⁰ kg yr⁻¹. These mass ejection rates are considerably less than the mass required in other unprocessed dust cloud methods proposed and are comparable to thin film reflector geoengineering requirements. Importantly, unprocessed dust sourced in-situ is seen as an attractive scheme compared to highly engineered thin film reflectors. It is envisaged that the required mass of dust can be extracted from captured near Earth asteroids, whilst stabilised in the required position using the impulse provided by solar collectors or mass drivers used to eject material from the asteroid surface.     

Self-organization in a current sheet model

Self-organization is a possible solution to the seemingly contradicting observation of the repeatable and coherent substorm phenomena with underlying complex behavior in the plasma sheet. Self-organization, through spatio-temporal chaos, emerges naturally in a plasma physics model with sporadic dissipation. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Schumann resonance frequency and conductivity in the nighttime ionosphere of Mars: A source for lightning

We have solved the Maxwellian equations of electromagnetic waves which oscillate within the cavity formed in the lower ionosphere of Mars between 0 and 70?km. The electrical conductivity and Schumann Resonance (SR) frequencies are calculated in the lower ionosphere of Mars, in the presence of a major dust storm that occurred in Martian Year (MY) 25 at low latitude region (25°–35°S). It is found that the atmospheric conductivity reduced by one to two orders of magnitude in the presence of a dust storm. It represents a small dust layer at about 25–30?km altitudes where lightning can occur. We also found that the SR frequencies peak at?～18?km with values 19.9, 34.5 and 48.8?Hz for the modes l?=?1, 2 and 3, respectively, in the non-homogeneous medium. Our results indicate that practical or measurable values of SR are dependent on the altitudes.     

Solitary and periodic waves in magneto–rotating plasmas: Effect of the Kappa–Cairns distributed electrons

The nonlinear propagation of ion–acoustic (IA) waves in a magneto–rotating plasma is studied by considering the Kappa-Cairns electron distribution. Employing the perturbation scheme, Korteweg–de Vries equation is derived. It is seen that both positive and negative potential solitons can be supported in the present plasma model. The numerical results reveal that the Kappa-Cairns distributed electrons modify features of the electrostatic waves significantly. The effects of non–thermal parameters, plasma rotation frequency, ion temperature, and the wave propagation angle on electrostatic solitary wave structures are also discussed here. It is found that the plasma parameters considerably influence the propagation of IA waves in rotating plasmas. Furthermore, using the bifurcation theory of planar dynamical systems to the K-dV equation, we have presented the existence of solitary and periodic traveling waves. Our study may be helpful to understand the behavior of ion–acoustic wave in the rotating plasma.     

Plasma electron temperature variability in lunar surface potential and in electric field under average solar wind conditions

The Moon is immersed in plasma environment. The most interesting challenge of the lunar plasma– field environment is that it is alternatively dominated by the extended but variable outer atmosphere of the Earth – the magnetosphere – and by the extended but highly variable solar atmosphere – the solar wind. Understanding the plasma environment and its interaction with the lunar surface will be beneficial to both manned and robotic surface exploration activities and to scientific investigations. Presented is a preliminary map of variations of lunar surface electric potential over the day side and night side using probe equations and a discussion on dust dynamics in this E-field structure using the data from Electron Reflectometer in Lunar Prospector spacecraft during 1998–1999. On the day side, potential is around 5 V and on the night side it reaches up to −82 V. On the night side region, only highly energetic electrons can overcome this large negative potential. The variation at electron temperature (T_e) strongly reflects in the surface potential. The potential reaches to a value of −82 V for T_e = 58 eV. Surface charging causes the electrostatic transport of charged dust grains. Dust grain size of 0.1 μm shows a levitation height of 4.92 m on lunar day side, 748 m on terminator region and 3.7 km on the night side. The radius of maximum sized grain to be lofted, R_max, peaks at the terminator region (R_max = 0.83 μm). At the transition region dust levitation is almost absent. This region is most suited for exploration activities as the region is free from hazards caused by lunar dust.